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THE SILENT WATCHERS 



By the Same Author 



THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS 

A series of exciting stories which reveal 
the English Secret Service as it really 
is — silent, unsleeping, and supremely 
competent. 

" William Dawson is a great creation, a sheer 
delight. If Mr. Bennet Copplestone's intriguing 
book meets with half the success it deserves, the 
inimitable Sherlock Holmes will soon be out- 
rivalled in popularity by the inscrutable William 
Dawson." — Daily Telegraph. 

$1.50 Net 

JITNY AND THE BOYS 

' ' The book is full of the thoughts which maka 
us proud to-day and help us to face to-morrow. 
Yes, 'Jitny' has my blessing." — Punch. 

" Motoring people could do nothing better than 
sit down and have a spin, in imagination, by read- 
ing this book. A clinking motor-car story. ' 

— Daily Chronicle. 

$1.50 Net 



New York - E. P. Dutton & Company 



THE 

Silent Watchers 

England's Navy during the Great War: 
What It Is, and What We Owe to It 



By 

BENNET COPPLESTONE - ^a 

AUTHOR OP 
"THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS" 



*' The Navy la a matter of machines only In 
bo far as human beings can only achieve ma- 
terial ends by material means. I look upon 
the ships and the guns as secreted by the 
men just as a torto ae cecretes Its shell." — 
Prologue. ' ' 




New York 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 Fifth Avenue 



*« 



Copyright, 1918 
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



SEP -3 1313 



Printid in the United States of America 

§>C!.A501642 



NOTE 

Between June, 1916, and February, 1918, I con- 
tributed a good many articles and sketches on 
Naval subjects to The Cornhill Magazine. They 
were not designed upon any plan or published 
in any settled sequence. As one article led up 
to another, and information came to me from my 
generously appreciative readers (many of whom 
were in the Service), I revised those which I had 
written and ventured to write still more. This 
book contains my Cornhill articles — revised ar.d 
sometimes re-written in the light of wider informa- 
tion and kindly criticism — and several additional 
chapters which have not previously been published 
anywhere. I have endeavoured to weave into a 
connected series articles and sketches which were 
originally disconnected, and I have introduced 
new strands to give strength to the fabric. Through 
the whole runs a golden thread which I have 
called The Secret of the Navy. 

B. C. 

March, 1918. 



CONTENTS 
PROLOGUE 

PAOB 

After the Battle 1 

CnAPTKB 

I. A Band of Brothers 19 

II. The Coming of War 43 

III. The Great Victory 62 

IV. With the Grand Fleet: A North Sea 

"Stunt" 81 

V. With the Grand Fleet: The Terriers 

and the Rats 99 

VI. The Mediterranean: A Success and a 

Failure 114 

VII. In the South Seas: The Disaster off 

CORONEL 129 

VIII. In the South Seas: Cleaning Up . . 149 

IX. How the "Sydney" Met the "Emden" . 174 

X. From Strength to Strength . . . 196 
XI. The Cruise of the "Glasgow": Part I — 

Rio to Coronel 216 

XII. The Cruise of the "Glasgow": Part II — 

Coronel to Juan Fernandez . . . 241 

XIII. The Battle of the Giants: Part I . 265 

XIV. The Battle of the Giants: Part II . 288 

EPILOGUE 

Lieutenant Caesar 321 

vii 



LIST OF MAPS 



The North Sea 

The Mediterranean Operations . 

The South Seas 

How the "Sydney" Met the "Emden" 
The " Sydney-Emden " Action 
The Cruise of the "Glasgow" . 
The Pacific: Von Spee's Concentration 
The Cruise of the "Glasgow" . 
The Battle of the Giants 

ix 



PAGE 

67 
119 
139 
178 
193 
219 
231 
253 
271 



THE SILENT WATCHERS 



PROLOGUE 



AFTER THE BATTLE 



" Caesar," said a Sub-lieutenant to his friend, a 
temporary Lieutenant R.N.V.R., who at the out- 
break of war had been a classical scholar at 
Oxford, "you were in the thick of our scrap 
yonder off the Jutland coast. You were in it 
every blessed minute with the battle cruisers, 
and must have had a lovely time. Did you ever, 
Caesar, try to write the story of it? " 

It was early in June of 1916, and a group 
of officers had gathered near the ninth hole of 
an abominable golf course which they had them- 
selves laid out upon an island in the great landlocked 
bay wherein reposed from their labours long lines 
of silent ships. It was a peaceful scene. Few 
even of the battleships showed the scars of battle, 
though among them were some which the Germans 
claimed to be at the bottom of the sea. There 
they lay, coaled, their magazines refilled, ready 
at short notice to issue forth with every eager 
man and boy standing at his action station. And 
while all waited for the next call, officers went 
ashore, keen, after the restrictions upon free 



2 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

exercise, to stretch their muscles upon the infamous 
golf course. It was, I suppose, one of the very 
worst courses in the world. There were no pre- 
pared tees, no fairway, no greens. But there was 
much bare rock, great tufts of coarse grass greedy 
of balls, wide stretches of hard, naked soil destruc- 
tive of wooden clubs, and holes cut here and there 
of approximately the regulation size. Few officers 
of the Grand Fleet, except those in Beatty's Salt 
of the Earth squadrons, far to the south, had 
since the war began been privileged to play upon 
more gracious courses. But the Sea Service, 
which takes the rough with the smooth, with 
cheerful and profane philosoplry, accepted the 
home-made links as a spirited triumph of the 
handy-man over forbidding nature. 

"Yes," said the naval volunteer, "I tried many 
times, but gave up all attempts as hopeless. I 
came up here to get first-hand material, and have 
sacrificed my short battle leave to no purpose. 
The more I learn the more helplessly incapable I 
feel. I can describe the life of a ship, and make 
you people move and speak like live things. But 
a battle is too big for me. One might as well try 
to realise and set on paper the Day of Judgment. 
All I did was to write a letter to an old friend, one 
Copplestone, beseeching him to make clear to the 
people at home what we really had done. I 
wrote it three days after the battle. Here it is." 

Lieutenant Csesar drew a paper from his pocket 
and read as follows: 

" My dear Copplestone, — Picture to yourself 
our feelings. On Wednesday we were in the fiery 
hell of the greatest naval action ever fought. A 



PROLOGUE: AFTER THE BATTLE 3 

real Battle of the Giants. Beatty's and Hood's 
battle cruisers — chaffingly known as the Salt of 
the Earth — and Evan Thomas's squadron of four 
fast Queen Elizabeths had fought for two hours 
the whole German High Seas Fleet. Beatty, in 
spite of his heavy losses, had outmanoeuvred 
Fritz's battle cruisers and enveloped the German 
line. The Fifth Battle Squadron had stalled off 
the German Main Fleet, and led them into the net 
of Jellicoe, who, coming up, deployed between 
Evan Thomas and Beatty, though he could not 
see either, crossed the T of the Germans in the 
beautifullest of beautiful manoeuvres, and had them 
for a moment as good as sunk. But the Lord 
giveth and the Lord taketh away; it is sometimes 
difficult to say Blessed be the Name of the Lord. 
For just when we most needed full visibility the 
mist came down thick, the light failed, and we 
were robbed of the fruits of victory when they 
were almost in our hands. It was hard, hard, 
bitterly hard. But we had done the utmost 
which the Fates permitted. The enemy, after 
being harried all night by destroyers, had got 
away home in torn rags, and we were left in supreme 
command of the North Sea, a command more 
complete and unchallengeable than at any moment 
since the war began. For Fritz had put out his 
full strength, all his unknown cards were on the 
table, we knew his strength and his weakness, and 
that he could not stand for a moment against our 
concentrated power. All this we had done, and 
rejoiced mightily. In the morning we picked up 
from Poldhu the German wireless claiming the 
battle as a glorious victory — at which we laughed 
loudly. But there was no laughter when in the 



4 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

afternoon Poldhu sent out an official message 
from our own Admiralty which, from its clumsy 
wording and apologetic tone, seemed actually 
to suggest that we had had the devil of a hiding. 
Then when we arrived at our bases came the 
newspapers with their talk of immense losses, 
and of bungling, and of the Grand Fleet's failure! 
Oh, it was a monstrous shame! The country 
which depends utterly upon us for life and honour, 
and had trusted us utterly, had been struck to 
the heart. We had come back glowing, exalted 
by the battle, full of admiration for the skill of 
our leaders and for the serene intrepidity of our 
men. We had seen our ships go down and pay 
the price of sea command — pay it willingly and 
ungrudgingly as the Navy always pays. Nothing 
that the enemy had done or could do was able to 
hurt us, but we had been mortally wounded in the 
house of our friends. It will take days, weeks, 
perhaps months, for England and the world to be 
made to understand and to do us justice. Do 
what you can, old man. Don't delay a minute. 
Get busy. You know the Navy, and lcve it with 
your whole soul. Collect notes and diagrams from 
the scores of friends whom you have in the Service; 
they will talk to you and tell you everything. I 
can do little myself. A Naval Volunteer who 
fought through the action in a turret, looking 
after a pair of big guns, could not himself see 
anything outside his thick steel walls. Go ahead 
at once, do knots, and the fighting Navy will 
remember you in its prayers." 

The attention of others in the group had been 
drawn to the reader and his letter, and when 



PROLOGUE: AFTER THE BATTLE 5 

Lieutenant Caesar stopped, flushed and out of 
breath, there came a chorus of approving laughter. 

"This temporary gentleman is quite a literary 
character," said a two-ring Lieutenant who had 
been in an exposed spotting top throughout the 
whole action, " but we've made a Navy man of 
him since he joined. That's a dashed good letter, 
and I hope you sent it." 

"Yes," said Caesar. "But while I was hesitat- 
ing, wondering whether I would risk the lightning 
of the Higher Powers, a possible court martial, 
and the loss of my insecure wavy rings, the business 
was taken out of my hands by this same man 
to whom I was wanting to write. He got moving 
on his own account, and now, though the battle 
is only ten days old, the country knows the rights 
of what we did. When it comes to describing 
the battle itself, I make way for my betters. For 
what could I see? On the afternoon of May 31st, 
we were doing gun drill in my turret. Suddenly 
came an order to put lyddite into the guns and 
follow the Control. During the next two hours 
as the battle developed we saw nothing. We were 
just parts of a big human machine intent upon 
working our own little bit with faultless accuracy. 
There was no leisure to think of anything but the 
job in hand. From beginning to end I had no 
suggestion of a thrill, for a naval action in a turret 
is just gun drill glorified, as I suppose it is meant 
to be. The enemy is not seen ; even the explosions 
of the guns are scarcely heard. I never took my 
ear-protectors from their case in my pocket. All 
is quiet, organised labour, sometimes very hard 
labour when for any reason one has to hoist the 
great shells by the hand purchase. It is extraor- 



6 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

dinary to think that I got fifty times more act- 
ual excitement out of a squadron regatta months 
ago than out of the greatest battle in naval history." 
"That's quite true," said the Spotting Officer, 
"and quite to be expected. Battleship fighting is 
not thrilling except for the very few. For nine- 
tenths of the officers and men it is a quiet, almost 
dull routine of exact duties. For some of us up 
in exposed positions in the spotting tops or on the 
signal bridge, with big shells banging on the 
armour or bursting alongside in the sea, it becomes 
mighty wetting and very prayerful. For the still 
fewer, the real fighters of the ship in the conning 
tower, it must be absorbingly interesting. But 
for the true blazing rapture of battle one has to 
go to the destroyers. In a battleship one lives 
like a gentleman until one is dead, and takes the 
deuce of a lot of killing. In a destroyer one lives 
rather like a pig, and one dies with extraordinary 
suddenness. Yet the destroyer officers and men 
have their reward in a battle, for then they drink 
deep of the wine of life. I would sooner any day 
take the risks of destroyer work, tremendous 
though they are, just for the fun which one gets 
out of it. It was great to see our boys round up 
Fritz's little lot. While you were in your turret, 
and the Sub. yonder in control of a side battery, 
Fritz massed his destroyers like Prussian infantry 
and tried to rush up close so as to strafe us with 
the torpedo. Before they could get fairly going, 
our destroyers dashed at them, broke up their 
masses, buffeted and hustled them about exactly 
like a pack of wolves worrying sheep, and with 
exactly the same result. Fritz's destroyers either 
clustered together like sheep or scattered flying 



PROLOGUE: AFTER TITE BATTLE 7 

to the four winds. It was just the same with the 
light cruisers as with the destroyers. Fritz could 
not stand against us for a moment, and could not 
get away, for we had the heels of him and the 
guns of him. There was a deadly slaughter of 
destroyers and light cruisers going on while we 
were firing our heavy stuff over their heads. Even 
if we had sunk no battle cruisers or battleships, 
the German High Seas Fleet would have been 
crippled for months by the destruction of its 
indispensable ' cavalry screen.' " 

As the Spotting Officer spoke, a Lieutenant- 
Commander holed out on the last jungle with a 
mashie — no one uses a putter on the Grand Fleet's 
private golf course — and approached our group, 
who, while they talked, were busy over a picnic 
lunch. 

" If you pigs haven't finished all the bully beef 
and hard tack," said he, "perhaps you can spare 
a bite for one of the blooming 'eroes of the X 
Destroyer Flotilla." The speaker was about 
twenty-seven, in rude health, and bore no sign of 
the nerve-racking strain through which he had 
passed for eighteen long-drawn hours. The young 
Navy is as unconscious of nerves as it is of indiges- 
tion. The Lieutenant-Commander, his hunger sat- 
isfied, lighted a pipe and joined in the talk. 

"It was hot work," said he, "but great sport. 
We went in sixteen and came out a round dozen. 
If Fritz had known his business, I ought to be 
dead. He can shoot very well till he hears the 
shells screaming past his ears, and then his nerves 
go. Funny thing how wrong we've been about 
him. He is smart to look at, fights well in a 
crowd, but cracks when he has to act on his own 



8 THE SILEN r WATCHERS 

without orders. When we charged his destroyers 
and r:m right in he just crumpled to bits. We 
had a batch of him nicely herded up, and were 
laying; him out in detail with guns and mouldies, 
when there came along a beastly intrusive Control 
Officer on a battle cruiser and took him out of 
our mouths, it v>;is a sweet shot, though. Some- 
one I don't, know his name, or ho would hoar of 

his deuced interference from me plumped a. salvo 
of L2-inch common shell right into the brown of 
Frits's huddled batch. Two or three of his 
destroyers wont, aloft in scrap-iron, and half a 
doien others were disabled, after the first hour 
his destroyers and light cruisers ceased to be on 
the stage; they had Sown quadrivious— there's an 
ormolu word for our classical volunteer and wo 
could have a whack at the big ships. Later, at 
eight, it was fine. We ran right in upon Frits's 
after-guard of sound battleships and rattled them 
most tremendous. He let fly at us with every 

bally gun he had. from -l-ineh to 14, and WC were 

a very pretty mark under his searchlights. We 

ought to have boon all laid out. but our loss was 
astonishingly small, and wo strafed two of his 

heavy ships. Most of his shots wont ovor lis." 

"Yes." called out the Spotting Officer, "yes, 
they did. and ricochetted all round us in the 
Queen Elisabeths. There was the devil of a row. 
The firing in the main action was nothing to it. 
All the while you were charging, and our guns 
were masked for fear of hitting you, Frits's bonbons 

Were screaming ovor our upper works and making 
us say our prayers out loud in the Spotting Tops. 
You'd have thought wo were at church. I was 
in the devil of a funk, and could hear my tooth 



PROLOGUE: AFTER THE BATTLE 9 

rattling. It is when one is fired on and can't hit 
bark that one thinks of one's latter end." 

"Did any of you see the Queen Mary go?" 
asked a tall thin man with the three rings of a 
Commander. "Our little lot saw nothing of the 
first part of the battle; we were with the K.G. 
Fives and Orions." 

"I saw her," spoke a Gunnery Lieutenant, a 
small, quiet man with dreamy, introspective eyes 
— the eyes of a poet turned gunner. "I saw her. 
She was hit forrard, and went in five seconds. 
You all know how. It was a thing which won't 
bear talking about. The Invincible took a long 
time to sink, and was still floating bottom up 
when Jellicoe's little lot earne in to feed after we 
and the Salt of the F]arth had eaten up most of 
the dinner. I don't believe that half the Grand 
Fleet fired a shot." 

There came a savage growl from officers of the 
main Battle Squadrons, who, invited to a choice 
banquet, had seen it all cleared away before their 
arrival. "That's all very well," grumbled one 
of them; "the four Q.E.S are getting a bit above' 
themselves because they had the luck of the fair. 
They didn't fight the High Seas Fleet by their 
haughty selves because they wanted to, you bet." 

The Gunnery Lieutenant with the dreamy eyes 
smiled. "We certainly shouldn't have chosen that 
day to fight them on. But if the Queen Elizabeth 
herself had been with us, and we had had full 
visibility — with the horizon a hard dark line— we 
would have willingly taken on all Fritz's 12-inch 
Dreadnoughts and thrown in his battle cruisers." 

"That's the worst of it," grumbled the Com- 
mander, very sore still at having tasted only of 



10 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the skim milk of the battle; " naval war is now 
only a matter of machines. The men don't count 
as they did in Nelson's day." 

"Excuse me, sir," remarked the Sub-Lieutenant; 
"may I say a word or two about that? I have 
been thinking it out." 

There came a general laugh. The Sub-Lieuten- 
ant, twenty years of age, small and dark and with 
the bright black eyes of his mother — a pretty little 
lady from the Midi de la France whom his father 
had met and married in Paris — did not look like a 
philosopher, but he had the clear-thinking, logical 
mind of his mother's people. 

"Think aloud, my son," said the Commander. 
"As a living incarnation of l'Entente Cordiale, you 
are privileged above those others of the gun-room." 

The light in the Sub's eyes seemed to die out 
as his gaze turned inwards. He spoke slowly, 
carefully, sometimes injecting a word from his 
mother's tongue which could better express his 
meaning. He looked all the while towards the 
sea, and seemed scarcely to be conscious of an 
audience of seniors. His last few sentences were 
spoken wholly in French. 

"No — naval war is a war of men, as it always 
was and always will be. For what are the machines 
but the material expression of the souls of the 
men? Our ships are better and faster than the 
German ships, our guns heavier and more accurate 
than theirs, our gunners more deadly than their 
gunners, because our Navy has the greater human 
soul. The Royal Navy is not a collection of 
lifeless ships and guns imposed upon men by 
some external power as the Kaiser sought to impose 
a fleet upon the Germans, a nation of landsmen. 



PROLOGUE: AFTER THE BATTLE 11 

The Navy is a matter of machines only in bo far 
as human beings can only achieve material ends 
by material means. I look upon the ships and 
guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise 
secretes its Bhell. They are the products of naval 
thought, and naval brains, and, above all, of that 
ever-expanding naval soul (Vesprii) which has been 
growing for a thousand years. Our ships yonder 
are materially new, the products almost of yester- 
day, but really they are old, centuries old; they 
are the expression of a naval soul working, fer- 
menting, always growing through the centuries, 
always seeking to express itself in machinery. 
Naval war is an art, the art of men, and where 
in the world will one find men like ours, officers 
like ours? Have you ever thought whence come 
those qualities which one sees glowing every day 
in our men, from the highest Admiral to the 
smallest ship boy— have you ever thought whence 
they come? " 

He paused, still looking out to sea. His com- 
panions, all of them his superiors in rank and 
experience, stared at hirn in astonishment, and one 
or two laughed. But the Commander signalled 
for silence. "Et apres," he asked quietly; "d'ou 
viennent ces qualites?" Unconsciously he had 
sloughed the current naval slang and spoke in the 
native language of the Sub. 

The effect was not what he had expected. At 
the sound of the Commander's voice speaking in 
French the Sub-Lieutenant woke up, flushed, and 
instantly reverted to his English self. "I am 
sorry, sir. I got speaking French, in which I 
always think, and when I talk French I talk the 
most frightful rot." 



IS THE SILENT WATCHERS 

"1 :un riot so sure that it was rot. Your theory 

seems to be that aw are, in the naval sense, t ho 

hears of the ages, and that no nation that, lias 

not. been through our oenturies-old mill can hope 
to stand against us, 1 hope that you are right. 
It is a ooxnforting theory," 

"Hut. isn't that, what wo all think, sir, though 
wo may not put it quite that way? Most of us 
know that our officers and men are of unapproach- 
able stuff in body and mind, but wo don't sock 
for a reason. Wo accept it as an axiom. I've 
tried to reason the thing out because I'm half 
French; and also because I've been brought up 
among dogs and horses and believe thoroughly in 
heredity. It's all a, matter of breeding." 

"The Sub's right," broke in the Gunnery 

Lieutenant with the poet's eyes; "though a Sub 
who six months ago was a snotty has no business 
to think of anything outside his duty. The Service 
would go io the devil if the gun-room began to 
talk psychology. We excuse it in this Sub here 
for the sake of the Entente Cordiale, of which he 
is the living embodiment ; but had any other 
jawed at us in that, style I would have sat upon 
his head. Of course he is right, though it isn't 
our English way to see through things and define 
them as the French do. No race on earth can 
touch us for horses or dogs or prise cattle — or 
Navy men. It takes centuries to breed the boys 
who ran submarines through the Dardanelles and 
the Sound and stayed out in narrow enemy waters 
for weeks together. Brains and nerves ami sea 
skill can't be made to order even by a German 
Kaiser. "Navy men should marry young and 
choose their women from sea families; and then 



PROLOGUE: AFTER THE BATTLE 13 

their kids won't need to be taught. TheyTl have 
the secret of the Service in their blood." 

"That's all very fine/' observed a Marine 
Lieutenant reflectively; "but who Is going to 

pay for it all? Wo can't. I get 7*. (W. a day, 
arid shall have lis. la a year or two; it sounds 

handsome, but would hardly run to a family. 

Few in the Navy have any private money, SO how 

Can wo marry early?" 

"Of course wo can't as things go now," said 
the Gunnery Lieutenant. "But some day i 

the Admiralty will discover that the English Navy 

will become a mere list of i machines unlet 

the Kn^lish naval families can be kept up on 
the lower deck as well as in the ward-room arid 

gun-room. Why, look at the names of our sub- 
marine officers whenever they get into the papers 
for honours. They are always salt of the sea, 

names which have been in the Navy List ever 
since there was a List. You may read the same 
names in the Trafalgar roll aid hack to the Dutch 
wars. Most of us were Pontes before that- shore 
PongOS who went afloat with Blake or Prince 
Rupert — but then we became sailors, and so 
remained, father to son. I can only go bacli 
myself to the Glorious First of June, but some of 
us here in the Grand Fleet date from the Stuarts 
at least. It is jolly fine to be of Navy blood, 
but not all plum jam. One has such a devil of 
a record to live up to. In my term at Dartmouth 
there was a poor little beast called Francis Drake 
— a real Devon Drake, a genuine antique- but 
what a load of a name to carry! Thank God, my 
humble name doesn't shine out of the history 
books. And as with the officers, so with the Sea- 



it THE SI] ENT V\ ETCHERS 

men. Half of then come from my own country 
of Devon the cradle of the Navy. They are in 
the direct line from Drake's buccaneers, Most. 
of the others corns Prom the anoient maritime 
counties of the Channel seaboard, where the blood 
of everyone tingles with Navy salt, The Germans 
can build ships which are more or less aoourate 
oopies of our own. but they can't breed the men. 
That is t ho whole secret*" 

rhe Lieutenant Commander, whose war-scarred 
destroyer lay belov/ refitting, laughed gently. 
"There's a lot in all that, more than we often 
realise when we grumble at the cursed obstinacy 
of our ohl ratings, but even you do not go back 
t':i r enough, it is the ohl blood of the Vikings 
and sea-pirates in us English which makes us 
turn to the sea; the rest is training. In no other 
waj can you explain the success of the Fringes, 

the mine sweepers, and patrols, most of them 

manned by naval volunteers who, before the war, 
had never served under the White Ensign nor 
seen a shot fired. What is our classical scholar 
here. Csasar, but a naval volunteer whom Whale 

Island and natural intelligence have turned into a 
gunner? But as regards the regular Navy, the 
Navy of the Grand Fleet, you are right. Fiek 
your boys from the sea families, eat eh them young. 
pump them full to the teeth with the Navy Spirit 
. •> of our bi-lingual Sub here make 
them drunk with it. Then they are all right. 
Fut they must never be allowed to think of a 

darned thing except of the job in hand, The Navy 

has no use for men who seek to peer into their 
own souls, They might do it in action and dis- 
cover blue funk. We want them to be no more 



PROLOGUE '.: 1 ER THE BATTLE W 

eiouf of then ban of tl Th< 

J admit that it if devil 
liver when one baa been cc< ped up Ui 

.:. wwk. It j. not nerve that Fritz laci 
much m a kindly obedient liver, J J' I 
gutted twine, and that w partly v.}./ be r 
run d d bmarnu 1 be 

German Brer i i a thn at* Do 

// " but here the Lieul mder 

b< came too Rah / delicate \>'-u. 

The group bad thinned o 
jrj naval ai a] of tl 

med their b i club-breakii g 

. the rillaino - goli i o i b the 

volunteer Lieutenant, a:. 'J the P 
ht.iJJ iat at the feet of tin u [ 

der like me?" 

Hr.kf-A C;/::-;ar diffidently. VVhaJe J ...: ■: which 

forgotten all other Latin i 

him the I 

( to ahead," i aid tl e ( 
"AH thin ituif ol mteei ; 

with' Q d \ o\ 

our tall tori':'-:, the .' ouM fail of a 

The know too much*" 

"J waa going to apeak of the 

( heeni to me to be ':/'/. : 

of tl - ce than the 

all ita qualitie-., empl 

| /::^;"::;;. 4 .f:'J. J do DOt k.'.O'.V 

■ or that they m \ m old, but 1 

JH nO f:h~i;Iil.Ux\ <lltf<:r<;I.':<; Hi age and fa] k .". 

een a i noti f i a montl i I cadet 

and a Commander of 

after dinnei ; I aeet, m to be 



10 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

equally well versed in the profound technical 
details of their sea work. Perhaps it is that they 
are born full of knowledge. The snotties interest 
me beyond every type that I have met. Their 
manners are perfect and in startling contrast with 
those of the average public school boy of fifteen 
or sixteen — even in College at Winchester — and 
they combine their real irresponsible youthfulness 
with a grave mask of professional learning which 
is delightful to look upon. I have before me the 
vision of a child of lifteen with tousled yellow 
hair and a face as glum as a sea-boot, sitting 
opposite to me in the machine which took us 
back one day to the boat, smoking a 'fag' with 
the clumsiness which betrayed his lack of practice, 
in between bites of 'goo' (in this instance Turkish 
Delight), of which I had seen him consume a 
pound. He looked about ten years old, and in a 
husky, congested voice, due to the continual 
absorption of sticky food, he described minutely 
to me the method of conning a battleship in 
manoeuvres and the correct amount to allow for 
the inertia of the ship when the helm is centred; 
he also explained the tactical handling of a squadron 
during sub-ealibre firing. That snotty was a sheer 
joy, and the Navy is full of him. He's gone 
himself, poor little chap — blown to bits by a shell 
which penetrated the deck." 

''In time, Ca?sar," said the Commander, "by 
strict attention to duty you will become a Navy 
man. But we have talked enough of deep mys- 
teries. It was that confounded Sub, with his 
French imagination, who started us. What I 
really wish someone would tell me is this: what 
was the 'northern enterprise' that Fritz was 



PROLOGUE: AFTER THE BATTLE 17 

on when we chipped in and spoilt his little 
game? " 

"It does not matter," said the Gunnery Lieuten- 
ant. "We spoilt it, anyhow. The dear old 
newspapers talk of his losses in big ships as if 
they were all that counted. What has really 
crippled him has been the wiping out of his de- 
stroyers and fast new cruisers. Without them he 
is helpless. It was a great battle, much more 
decisive than most people think, even in the 
Grand Fleet itself. It was as decisive by sea as 
the Marne was by land. We have destroyed 
Fritz's mobility." 

The men rose and looked out over the bay. 
There below them lay their sea homes, serene, 
invulnerable, and about them stretched the dull, 
dour, treeless landscape of their northern fastness. 
Their minds were as peaceful as the scene. As they 
looked a bright light from the compass platform 
of one of the battleships began to flicker through 
the sunshine — dash, dot, dot, dash. "There goes 
a signal," said the Commander. "You are great 
at Morse, Pongo. Read what it says, my 
son." 

The Lieutenant of Marines watched the flashes, 
and as he read grinned capaciously. "It is some 
wag with a signal lantern," said he. "It reads: 
Question — Daddy, — what — did — you — do — in — 
the— Great— War?" 

"I wonder," observed the Sub-Lieutenant, "what 
new answer the lower deck has found to that 
question. Before the battle their reply was: 'I 
was kept doubling round the decks, sonny.' " 

"There goes the signal again," said the Pongo; 
"and here comes the answer." He read it out 



18 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

slowly as it flashed word after word: " *I laid 

THE GUNS TRITE, SONNY.' " 

''And a dashed good answer, too," cried the 
Commander heartily. 

"That would make a grand fleet signal before a 
general action," remarked the Gunnery Lieutenant. 
"I don't care much for Nelson's Trafalgar signal. 
It was too high-flown and sentimental for the 
lower deck. It was aimed at the history books, 
rather than at old tarry-breeks of the fleet a 
hundred years ago. No — there could not be a 
better signal than just 'Lay the Guns True' — 
carry out your orders precisely, intelligently, fault- 
lessly. What do you say, my Hun of a classical 
volunteer? " 

"It could not be bettered," said Caesar. 

<4 I will make a note of it," said the Gunnery 
Lieutenant, "against the day, when as a future 
Jellicoe, I myself shall lead a new Grand Fleet into 
action." 



CHAPTER I 
A BAND OF BROTHERS 
"Wn f«:w, vie b&ppy f<:w, ire band of brothen." — King Henry V. 

My boyhood was spent in Devon, the land of 
Drake and the home of the Elizabethan Navy. 
A deep passion for the Sea Service is in my blood, 
though, owing to family cireum tances, I was 
not able to indulge my earliest ambition to become 
myself one of the band of brothers who serve under 
the White Ensign. My elder brother lived and 
died afloat. Two of my eons, happier than their 
father, are privileged to play their parts in the 
great ships of the Fleets. So that, though not 
in the Service, I am of it, by ties of blood ar.d 
by ties of the earliest association. Whenever 1 
have sought to penetrate its mysteries and to 
interpret them to my fellow countrymen, my 
motive has never been that of mere idle curiosity. 
The Royal Navy wields, and has always wielded, 
a great materia] force, but the secret of its strength 
lies not in the machines with which it has equipped 
itself in the various stages of its development. 
Vast and terrible as are the ships and the guns, 
they would be of little worth if their design and 
skilful employment were not inspired by that 
spiritual force, compounded of tradition, training, 
devotion and discipline, which I call the Soul of 

10 



20 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the Navy. In the design of its weapons, in its 
mastery of their use, above all in its consummate 
seamanship, the Royal Navy has in all ages sur- 
passed its opponents; but it has done these things 
not through some fortuitous gift of the Sea Gods, 
but because of the never-failing development of 
its own spirit. It has always been at a great 
price, in the sacrifice of ease and in the outpour- 
ing of the lives of men, that the Navy has won 
for itself and for us the freedom of the seas. 
Those who reckon navies in ships and guns, in 
weight of metal and in broadside fire, while 
leaving out of account the spirit and training 
and devotion of the men, can never understand 
the Soul of the Navy. For all these material 
things are the expression of the Soul; they are 
not the Soul itself. 

The Navy is still the old English Navy of the 
southern maritime counties of England. It has 
become the Navy of Great Britain, the Navy of 
the British Empire, but in spirit, and to a large 
extent in hereditary personnel, it remains the 
English Navy of the Narrow Seas. Many counties 
play a great part in its equipment, but to me 
it is always the Navy of my own land of Devon; 
officers and men are the lineal successors of those 
bold West Country seamen who in their frail 
barks ranged the wide seas hundreds of years ago 
and first taught to us and to the world the meaning 
of the expression "sea communications." 

There is not an officer in the permanent service 
of the Fleets of to-day who was not trained in 
Devon. On the southern seaboard of that county, 
set upon a steep slope overlooking the mouth of 
the most lovely of rivers, stands the Naval College 



A BAND OF BROTHERS 21 

in which are being trained those who will guide 
our future Fleets. A little way to the west lies one 
of the greatest of naval ports and arsenals. From 
my county of Devon comes half the Navy of 
to-day, half the men of the Fleet, be they warrant 
officers, seamen or engineers. The atmosphere 
of Devon, soft and sleepy as it may appear to a 
stranger, is electric with the spirit of Drake, 
which is the spirit of Nelson, which is the spirit 
of the boys of Dartmouth. For generation after 
generation, in the old wooden hulks Britannia 
and Hindustan, and afterwards in the Naval 
College on the heights, the cadets during their 
most impressionable years have breathed in the 
spirit of the Navy. I have often visited them 
there and loved them; my brother, who worked 
among them and taught them, died there, and 
is buried in the little cemetery which crowns the 
hill where, years ago in a blinding snowstorm, I 
stood beside his open grave and heard the Last 
Post wail above his body. I have always envied 
him that great privilege, to die in the service of 
the Navy and to be buried within hail of the boys 
whom he loved. 

The cadets of Dartmouth have learned that the 
Sea Service is an exacting and most jealous mistress 
who brooks no rival. They have learned that 
the Service is everything and themselves nothing. 
They have learned that only by humbly submitting 
themselves to be absorbed into the Service can 
they be deemed to be worthy of that Service. 
The discipline of the Navy is no cast-iron system 
imposed by force and punishment upon unwilling 
men ; there is nothing in it of Prussian Militarism. 
It is rather the willing subordination of proud 



22 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

free men to the dominating interests of a Service 
to which they have dedicated their lives. The 
note of their discipline is "The Service first, last, 
and all the time." The Navy resembles somewhat 
a religious Order, but in the individual subordina- 
tion of body, heart, brains and soul there is nothing 
of servitude. The Naval officer is infinitely proud 
and infinitely humble. Infinitely proud of his 
Service, infinitely humble in himself. If an officer 
through error, however pardonable, loses his 
ship — and very young officers have command of 
ships — and in the stern, though always sympa- 
thetic, judgment of his fellows he must temporarily 
be put upon the shelf, he does not grumble or 
repine. He does not write letters to the papers 
upon his grievances. He accepts the judgment 
loyally, even proudly, and strives to merit a 
return to active employment. No flcshpots in 
the outer world, no honours or success in civil 
employment, ever compensate the naval officer 
for the loss of his career at sea. 

From the circumstances of their lives, so largely 
spent among their fellows at sea or in naval 
harbours, and from their upbringing in naval 
homes and training ships, officers and men grow 
into a class set apart, dedicated as Followers of 
the Sea, in whose eyes the dwellers in cities appear 
as silly chatterers and hucksterers, always seeking 
after some vain thing, be it wealth or rank or 
fame. The discipline of the Navy is, like its 
Soul, apart and distinct from anything which we 
know on land. It is very strict but also very 
human. There is nothing in it of Caste. "I 
expect." said Drake, "the gentlemen to draw 
with the mariners." Drake allowed of no dis- 



A BAND OF BROTH! 23 

tinction between "gentlemen" and "mariners' 1 
except that "gentlemen" were expected always 
to mirpaefl the "mariners" in tireless activity, 
cheerful endurance of hardships, and unshakable 

valour in action. Drake could bear tenderly with 
the diseased grumbling of a scurvy-stricken mar- 
iner, but the gentleman adventurer who "groused" 
was in grievous peril of a rope and a yard arm. 
The gentlemen adventurers have given place- to 
professional naval officers, the mariners have be- 
come the long-service trained seamen in their 
various grades who have given their lives to the 
Navy, but the spirit of Drake endures to this 
day. The Gentlemen are expected to draw with 
the Mariners. 

When a thousand lives and a great ship may be 
lost by the lapse from vigilance of one man, very 
strict discipline is a vital necessity. But as with 
officers so with men it is the discipline of cheerful, 
willing obedience. The spirit of the Navy is 
not the spirit of a Caste. It burns as brightly in 
the seaman as in the lieutenant, in the ship's 
boy as in the midshipman, in the warrant officer 
as in the "Owner." It is a discipline hammered 
out by the ceaseless fight with the sea. The Navy 
is always on active service; it is always waging 
an unending warfare with the forces of the sea; 
the change from a state of peace to a state of war 
means only the addition of one more foe — and 
if he be a gallant and chivalrous foe he is wel- 
comed gladly as one worthy to kill and to be 
killed. 

Catch boys young, inure them to Naval dis- 
cipline, and teach thern the value of it, and to 
them it will become part of the essential fabric of 



24 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

their lives. A good example of how men of Naval 
training eling to the discipline of the Service as 
to a firm unbreakable rope was shown in Cap- 
tain Scott's South Polar expeditions. Some of 
the officers, and practically the whole of the crews, 
were lent by the Navy, but the expeditions them- 
selves were under auspices which were not naval. 
At sea Captain Scott's legal authority was that of a 
merchant skipper, on land during his exploring 
expeditions he had no legal authority at all. Yet 
all the officers and men, knowing that their lives 
depended upon willing subordination, agreed that 
the discipline both at sea and on land should be 
that of the Navy to which most of them belonged. 
The ships were run exactly as if they had flown 
the White Ensign, and as if their companions were 
under the Navy Act. Strict though it may be, 
there is nothing arbitrary about naval discipline, 
and those who have tested it in peace and war 
know its quality of infinite endurance under any 
strain. 

The Navy is a small Service, small in numbers, 
and to this very smallness is partly due the beauty 
of its Soul. For it is a picked Service, and only 
by severe selection in their youth can those be 
chosen who are worthy to remain among its 
permanent members. The professional officers and 
men number only some 150,000, and the great 
temporary war expansion — after the inclusion of 
Naval Reservists, Naval Volunteers, and the 
Division for service on land, did little more than 
treble the active list. The Navy, even then, 
bore upon its rolls names less than one-twelfth 
as numerous as in those legions who were drafted 
into the Army. Yet this small professional Navy, 



A BAND OF BROTHERS 25 

by reason of its Soul and the vast machines 
which that Soul secretes and employs with su- 
preme efficiency, dominated throughout the war 
the seas of the whole world. The Navy has 
for BO long been a wonder and a miracle that we 
have ceased to be thrilled by it; we take it for 
granted; but it remains no less a wonder and a 
miracle. 

Many causes have combined to make this little 
group— this few, this happy few, this band of 
brothers — the most splendid human force which 
the world has ever seen. The Naval Service is 
largely hereditary. Officers and men come from 
among those who have served the sea for genera- 
tions. In the Navy List of to-day one may read 
names which were borne upon the ships' books 
of hundreds of years ago. And since the tradition 
of the sea plays perhaps the greatest part in the 
development of the Naval Soul, this continuity 
of family service, on the lower deck as in the 
wardroom and gun room, needs first to be empha- 
sised. The young son of an officer, of a warrant- 
officer, of a seaman, or of a marine, enters the 
Service already more than half trained. He has 
the spirit of the Service in his blood, and its col- 
lective honour is already his own private honour. 
I remember years ago a naval officer said to me 
sorrowfully, "My only son must go into the 
Service, and yet I fear that he is hardly fit for 
it. He is delicate, shy, almost timid. But what 
can one do? " 

"Is it necessary?" I asked foolishly. He stared 
at me: "We have served from father to son 
since the reign of Charles II." So the boy en- 
tered the Britannia, and I heard no more of 



26 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

him until one morning, years after, I saw in an 
Honours List a name which I knew, that of a 
young Lieutenant who had won the rare naval 
V.C. in the Mediterranean. It was my friend's 
son; blood had triumphed; the delicate, shy, 
almost timid lad had made good. 

The Navy catches its men when they are young, 
unspoiled, malleable, and moulds them with deft 
lingers as a sculptor works his clay. Officers 
enter in their early teens — now as boys at Osborne 
who afterwards become naval cadets at Dart- 
mouth. Formerly they spent a year or two 
longer at school and entered direct as cadets to 
the Brittania. The system is essentially the same 
now as it has been for generations. The material 
must be good and young, the best of it is re- 
tained and the less good rejected. The best is 
moulded and stamped in the Dartmouth work- 
shop, and emerges after the bright years of early 
boyhood with the naval hall mark upon it. The 
seamen enter as bo} r s into training-ships, and 
they, too, are moulded and stamped into the naval 
pattern. It is a very exacting but a very just 
education. No one who has been admitted to 
the privilege of training need be rejected except 
by his own fault, and if he is not worthy to be 
continued in training, he is emphatically not 
worthy to serve in the Fleets. 

Of late years this system, which requires abun- 
dance of time for its full working out, has proved 
to be deficient in elasticity. It takes some seven 
years to make a cadet into a sub-lieutenant, while 
a great battleship can be built and equipped in 
little more than two years. The German North 
Sea menace caused a rapid expansion in the out- 



A BAND OF BROTHERS 27 

put of ships, especially of big ships, which far 
outstripped the training of junior officers needed 
for their service. The Osborne-Dartmouth system 
had not failed, far from it, but it was too slow 
for the requirements of the Navy under the new 
conditions. In order to keep up with the demand, 
the supply of naval cadets was increased and 
speeded up by the admission of young men from 
the public schools at the age when they had been 
accustomed to enter for permanent Army com- 
missions. A large addition was also made to the 
roll of subalterns of Marines — who received training 
both for sea and land work — and in this way the 
ranks of the junior officers afloat were rapidly 
expanded. There was no departure from the 
Navy's traditional policy of catching boys young 
and moulding them specially and exclusively for 
the Sea Service; the new methods were avowedly 
additional and temporary, to be modified or 
withdrawn when the need for urgent expansion 
had disappeared. The Navy was clearly right. 
It was obliged to make a change in its system, but 
it made it to as small an extent as would meet the 
conditions of the moment. The second best was 
tacked on to the first best, but the first best was 
retained in being to be reverted to exclusively as 
soon as might be. To catch boys young, pref- 
erably those with the sea tradition in their blood, 
to teach them during their most impressionable 
years that the Navy must always be to them as 
their father, mother and wedded wife — the exacting 
mistress which demands of them the whole of 
their affections, energies and service, to dedicate 
them in tender years to their Sea Goddess — this 
mast always be the way to preserve, in its purest 



28 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

undimmed water, that pearl of great price, the 
Soul of the Navy, 

It follows from (ho circumstances of their 

training and life that the Navy is a Family of 
which the members are bound together by the 

closest of ties of individual friendship and associa- 
tion. It is a Service in which everybody knows 

everybody else, not only by name and reputation 

but by personal contact. During the long years 
of residence at Osborne and Dartmouth, and 

afterwards in the Fleets, at the Greenwich Naval 

College, at the Portsmouth schools of instruction, 
officers widely separated by years and rank learn 
to know one another and to weigh one another in 
the most just of balances — that of actual service. 
Those of us who have passed many years in tho 
world of affairs, know that tho only reputation 
Worth having is that which we earn among those 
of our own profession or craft. And none of us 
upon land are known ami weighed with the intimate 
certainty and impartiality which is possible to the 
Sea Service. We arc not seen at close contact 
and under all conditions of work and play, and 
never in the white light which an ever-present 
peril casts upon our worth and hardihood. No 
fictitious reputation is possible in the Navy itself 
as it is possible in the world outside. Officers 
may, through the exercise of influence, be placed 
in positions over the heads of others of greater 
worth, they may be written and talked about by 
civilians in the newspapers as among the most 
brilliant in their profession — especially in time of 
peace — but the Navy, which has known them 
from youth to age inside and out, is not deceived. 
The Navy laughs at many of the reputations 



A BAND OF BROTBD 29 

which we poor civilians ignorantly honour. No 
naval reputation i.s of any value whatever unlet a 
it be endorsed by the Navy itself. And the Navy 
does not talk. How many newspaper readers, 

for instance, had heard of Admiral Jellieoe before 
he was placed in command of the Grand Fleet at 
the outbreak of war? But the Navy knew all 
about him and endorsed the choice. 

What I write of officers applies with equal force 
to the men, to the long-service ratings, the petty 

officers and warrant officers who form the backbone 
of the Service. They, too, are caught young, 
drawn wherever possible from BOA families, moulded 
and trained into the naval pattern, stamped after 
many years with the hall mark of the Service. 
It is a system which has bred a mutual confidence 
and respect between officers and men as unyielding 
as armour-plate. Before the battle of May 31st, 
1916, the Grand Fleet had gone forth looking for 
Fritz many times and finding huri not. Little 
was expected, but if the unexpected did happen, 
then officers believed in their long-service ratings 
as profoundly as did these dear old grumblers in 
their leaders. Many times in the wardrooms of 
the battle squadrons the prospects of action 
would be discussed and always in the same way. 

"No, it's not likely to be anything, but if it 
is what we've been waiting for, I have every 
confidence in our long-service ratings if the Huns 
are really out for blood. You know what I mean 
— those grizzled old G.L.I.s (gunlayers, first-class), 
and gunners 1 mates and horny-handed old A.B.8 
whom we curse all day for their damned ob- 
stinacy. The Huns think that two years make 
a gunlayer; wo know that even twelve years arc 



30 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

not enough. Our long-service ratings would pull 
the country through, even if wo hadn't the me- 
chanical advantage over Fritz which wo actually 
possess. And the combination of the long-service 
ratings and the two-Power standard will, when we 
get to work upon him, give Fritz furiously to 
think." 

Even when the great expansion among the big 
fighting Bhips called for a corresponding expansion 
in the crews, little essential change was made in 
the system which had bred confidence such as 
this. There was some slight dilution. Officers 
and men of the R.N.R. «md the Naval Volunteers, 
to the extent of about 10 per cent., were drafted 
into the first-line battleships, but the cream of the 
professional service was kept for the first fighting 
line. For the most part the new temporary 
Navy, of admirable material drawn from our 
almost limitless maritime population, was kept 
at work in the Fringes of the Fleet — the mine- 
sweepers, armed liners, blockading patrols, and 
so on — where less technical navy skill was required, 
and where invaluable service could be and was 
done. The professional Navy has the deepest 
respect and gratitude for the devoted work dis- 
charged by its amateur auxiliaries. 

The Navy is a young man's service. In no 
other career in life are the vital energies, the 
eager spirits, the glowing capacities of youth 
given such ample opportunities for expression. A 
naval officer can become a proud "Owner," with 
an independent command of a destroyer or sub- 
marine, at an age when in a civil profession he 
would be entrusted with scanty responsibilities. 
In civil life there is a horrible waste of youth; it 



A BAND OF BROTHERS 31 

is kept down, largely left unused, by the jealousy 
of age. But the Navy, which is very wise, makes 
the most of every hour of it. The small craft, the 
Fringes of the Fleet as Mr. Kipling calls them, 
the eyes and ears and guardians of the "big ships, 
the patrol boats, submarines and destroyers, are 
captained by youngsters under thirty, often under 
twenty-five. The land crushes youth, the sea 
allows and encourages its fine flower to expand. 
Naval warfare is directed by grave men, but is 
to an enormous extent carried on by bright boys. 

But the Navy which employs youth more fully 
than any other service, also uses it up more re- 
morselessly. Unless an officer can reach the rank 
of Commander — a rank above that of a Major 
in the Army — when he is little more than thirty 
he has a very scanty chance in time of peace 
of ever serving afloat as a full Captain. The 
small ships are many in number, but the big 
ships are comparatively few. Only the best of 
the best can become Commanders at an age which 
enables them to reach post rank in that early 
manhood which is a necessity for the command 
of a modern super-Dreadnought. Many of those 
who do become Captains in the early forties have 
to eat out their hearts upon half-pay because there 
are not enough big ships in commission to go 
round. It is only in time of war that the whole 
of our Fleets are mobilised. Some years ago I 
was dining with several naval officers from a 
battle squadron which lay in the Firth of Forth. 
Beside me sat a young man looking no more 
than thirty-five, and actually little older. He was 
a Captain I knew, and in course of conversation I 
asked for the name of his ship. "The Dread- 



THE SILEN r WATCHERS 

nought," said ho. This was the time when the 

name wad fame of the first Dreodnoti^Ai, the first 
all-big-gun ship which revolutionised the con- 
struction of the battle line, was ringing through 

the world. And yet hero was this famous ship 

in charge of a young smooth-faced follow, younger 
than myself, and I did not then consider that I 
was middle-aged] "Are you not rather young?" 
I enquired diffidently. He smiled, "Wo need to 

be young." said ho. Then I understood. It 

came homo to me that the modern Navy, with 
its incredibly rapid development in machinery, 
must have in its executive officers those precious 

qualities of adaptability and quick perception, 
that readiness to be always learning and testing, 
seeking and finding the best new ways of solving 
old problems, which can only bo found in youth. 
Youth is of the essence of the Navy, it always has 
been so and it probably always will be. Youth 
learns quickly, and the Naval officer is always 
learning. In civil life wo enter our professions, 
we struggle through our examinations as doctors 
or lawyers or engineers, and then we are content 
to pass our lives in practice and forget our books. 
But the naval officer, whose active life is passed 
on the salt sea, is ever a student. He goes back- 
Wards and forwards between the sea and the 
schools. There is 00 stage and no rank at which 
his education stops. Gunnery, torpedo practice, 
electricity, navigation, naval strategy, and tactics 
are all rapidly progressive sciences, A few years. 
a very few years, and a whole scheme of practice 
becomes obsolete. So the naval officer needs for 
ever to be passing from the sea to the Vernon, or 
the Excellent or to Greenwich, where he is kept 



A BAND 01 BROTHERS 

• ■>•• 
up-to-date and given b perennial opportunity to 
develop the beet that i i in him. From fifteen to 
forty be i - always learning, alv. ting, all 

growing, and then unl< . his luck Is very great 
- he bae to give iray to the rising youth of other 
men and re it himself mimed upon the shelf. The 

highest DO I ■■■<<: not for him* It is very remorse- 
less the way in which the Navy uses and u < 

its youth, arid very touching the devoted bumble 
way in which that youth submits to be to used 
up. The Navy is ever growing in icience and in 
knowledge, it muet always have of the \x 
the remorse!' . with whieh it e! oo:.es only of 

the beet, and the patience with which thoee who 
are not of the be t iibmit without r e p inin g to 
its devices, are of the Soul of the Navy. 

Admiral Sir David Beatty became Commander- 
in-Chief of the Grand Fleet at the age of forty-five. 
In yean of life and of service he was junior to 
half the Captains 1 List. He had sprung by merit 
and by opportunity some ten year; above his 
contemporaries at Dartmouth. First in the Soudan, 
when serving En the flotilla of gunboats, he wen 
promotion from Lieutenant to Commander at the 
age of twenty-seven. Again at Tien-tsiu in Ch 
bis char.ee came, and in 1000, while Still under 

thirty, he reached the captain's rank. When the 

War broke out he WSJ B Rear-Admiral in COnUE 

of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and 
given the acting rank of Vice-Admiral He is 
DOW an acting Admiral, and his seniors in y 
a/id even in rank, willingly serve beneath him. 

Admiral Beatty is not a scientific sailor, and is 

not wedded to the t of his 

brother officers. But for the outbreak of the war he 



34 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

would probably have retired. Yet no one ques- 
tions his pre-eminent fitness for his dazzling 
promotion. He has that rare indefinable quality 
of leadership of men and of war instinct which 
cannot be revealed except by war itself. When, 
by fortunate chance, this quality is discovered in 
an officer it is instantly recognised as beyond price, 
and cherished at its full worth. 

The Naval system which teaches subordination, 
also teaches independence. If to men roaming 
over the seas in command of ships, orders come, it 
is well; if orders do not come it is also well — 
they get on very well without them. If the entire 
Admiralty were wiped out by German bombs, 
My Lords and the whole staff destroyed, the Navy 
would, in its own language, " proceed " to carry 
on. In the middle of the political crisis of De- 
cember 1916, when a new Naval Board of Admiralty 
had just been appointed, I asked a senior officer 
how the new lot were getting on. He said: 
"There isn't any First Lord. The First Sea Lord 
is in bed with influenza. The Second Sea Lord is 
in bed with influenza. The Third Sea Lord is in 
bed with influenza. The Fourth Sea Lord is at 
work but is sickening for influenza. But the Navy 
is all right." That is the note of serene confidence 
which distinguishes the Sea Service. Whatever 
happens, the Navy is all right. 

The Navy is a poor man's Service. It is a real 
profession in which the officers as a rule live on 
their pay and ask for little more. Men of great 
houses will enter the Army in time of peace and 
regard it as a mild occupation, men of money will 
enter for the social position which it may give to 
them. But no man of rank or of money in search 



A BAND OF BROTHERS 35 

of a "cushy job," was ever such an ass as to 
look for it in the Navy. Few officers in the Navy 
— except among those who have entered in quite 
recent years — have any resources beyond their 
pay; many of them are born to it, and in their 
families there have been scanty opportunities for 
saving. The Admiralty, until quite recently, re- 
quired that young officers upon entry into the Navy 
or the Marines should be allowed small specified 
sums until they attained in service pay the em- 
inence of about lis. a day, and also that a com- 
plete uniform equipment should be provided for 
them; but after that initial help from home 
they were expected to make their pay suffice. And 
in the great majority of cases they did what was 
expected of them. Living is cheap in the Sea 
Service. Ships pay no duties upon their stores, 
and there are few opportunities afloat for the 
wasting of money. Mess bills in ward-room and 
gun-room are small, and must be kept small, 
or the captain will arise in wrath and ask to be 
informed (in writing) of the reason why. Ere 
now young men have been dismissed their ships 
for persistently running up too large a wine bill; 
and to be dismissed one's ship means not only a 
bad mark in the Admiralty's books, but loss of 
seniority, which in turn means an extra early 
retirement upon that exiguous half -pay which looms 
always like a dark cloud upon the naval horizon. 

Unhappily for its officers and the country the 
Navy has not been a married man's service; it 
has been too exacting to tolerate a divided alle- 
giance. Sometimes poor young things under stress 
of emotion have got married, and then has begun 
for them the most cruel and ageing of struggles — 



M vm: 311 EN r w \ rCHERS 

the man at sea hard put to it to keep up his posi- 
tion, simple though it bej the wife ashore in poor 
lodgings or in some tiny villa, lonely, struggling, 
growing old too fast for her years; children who 

rarefy see their father, and whose prOSpeotS are 

of the gloomiest. I do not willingly put my pen 
to this picture. Young Navy men, glowing with 
health ami virile energy, and the spirit of the 
Service, are very attractive creatures to whom 
goes out the lovo ^i women, but though they, too, 
may love, they are usually Compelled to sail away. 
It is well for them then if they are as firmly 
wedded to the Service as the Roman priest is to 
his Church, and if they are not always as continent 
as the priest, who is so free from sin that he will 
dare to cast a stone at them? If the country 
and its rulers had any belief in heredity, of which 
the evidence stares at them from the eyes oi every 
naval sou born to the Service, they would grant 
to a young otlicer a year of leave in which to be 
married, and pay to him and to his mate a hand- 
some subsidy for every splendid son whom they 
laid in the cradles of the Service of the future. 

Of late years there has been a change. The rapid 
expansion of the Fleets has brought in many young 
cadets of commercial families, whose parents have 
far more money than is wholly good for their sons. 
The N"a\ y is net so completely a poor man's service 
as it was even ten years ago. The junior officers 
are. some of them, too well off. Not long since, a 
senior Captain was lamenting this change in my 
presence. "The snotties now." he groaned, "all 
keep motor bicylees. the sub-lieutenants are not 
happy till they own cars, and the l.ieutenant- 
Commandera think nothing of getting married. 



A BAND 01 BROTHE .,/ 

All this has b< r n the result of con c e nt r a ting the 
Fleeti i/j home waters. Germany compelled us 
to do it, but the Service was the better for the 
three-year commissions on foreign station*," AH 
thii is true. 'J he junior rankf are getting rii 

ea y^'-y can spend little, bore and fin 

harbour there are opportunities for gold to corrupt 
the higher virtue .. |w, r rrj y part,, however, J have 
the fullest confidence in the training and the example 
of the older officers. In this war there b 
nothing to suggest that the young .' avy in lens 
devoted and self-sacrificing than the old The 
wealthier boys may take their fling on leav< 
and who can blame them?' but at sea the Service 
comes fh it. 

We love that most which is most hardly won. 
And the Navy men love their Service, not because 
it is easy but because of the hardness of it, and 

i <: of the sacrifices which \\ from diem. 

It fastens its grip upon them in those fii 
between fifteen and twenty, and the grip gi 
ever tighter with the flight of time. It is at its 
very tightest when the dreadful hour of retirenu at 
arrives, When War broke out, in August 1014, 
it wan hailed with joy by the active Navy afloat, 
but their joy was as water unto wine in comparison 
with that which transfigured the retired '■ 
ashore. For them at long last the impossible had 

ballised into fact* For those who were still 
young enough, the uniform--, were waiting n 
in the tin bo/':-, upstairs, and it was but a short 

Step from their house door:-; to the decks of a 

King's ship. Once more their gallant names 
could be written in the Active List of then Navy. 

They hastened baek, the; and if 



38 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

there was no employment for them in their own 
rank, they snatched at that in any other rank 
which offered. Captains R.N. became commanders 
and even lieutenants R.N.R. in the Fringes. 
Admirals became temporary captains. There were 
indeed at one time no fewer than nineteen retired 
admirals serving as temporary officers R.N.R. in 
armed liners. 

If you would understand how the "Navy loves 
the Service, how that love is not a part of their 
lives, but is their lives, reflect upon the case of one 
aged officer. I will not give his name; he would 
not wish it. He had been in retirement for nearly 
forty years, too old for service in his rank, too old 
possibly for service in any rank. But his pleadings 
for employment afloat softened the understanding 
hearts at Whitehall. He was allowed to rejoin 
and to serve as a temporary Lieutenant-Com- 
mander in an armed yacht which assisted the 
ex-Brazilian monitors sent to bombard the Belgian 
coast. There against Zeebrugge he served among 
kindly lads young enough to be his grandsons, 
and there with them and among them he was 
killed — the oldest officer serving afloat. And he 
was happy in his death. Not Wolfe before Quebec, 
not Nelson in the cockpit of the Victory, were 
happier or more glorious in their deaths than was 
that temporary Lieutenant-Commander (trans- 
ferred at his own request from the retired list) 
who fought his last fight upon the decks of an 
armed yacht and died as he would have prayed 
to die. 

The Navy hates advertisement and scorns above 
all things in heaven or upon earth the indiscrim- 
inating praise of well-meaning civilians. I sadly 



A BAND OF BROTHERS 39 

realise that it may scorn mo and this book of 
mine. But I will do my best to make amends. I 
will promise that never once in describing their 
deeds will I refer to Navy men as "neroes." I 

will not, where I can possibly avoid doing so, 
mention the name of anyone. I will do my 
utmost at all times to write of them as men and 

not as "b angels." I will, at the peril of 

some inconsistency, declare my conviction that 
naval officers haven't any souls, that they are in 
the Service because they love it, and not because 
they care two pins for their country, that they 
are rather pleased than otherwise when rotten 
civilians at home get a bad fright from a raid. I 
will deelare that they catch and sink German 
submarines by all manner of cunning devices, 
from the sheer zest of sport, and not because they 
would raise a finger to save the lives of silly pas- 
sengers in luxurious ocean liners. I will do any- 
thing to turn their scorn away from me except to 
withdraw one word which I have written upon 
the Soul of the Navy. For upon this subject they 
would, I believe, write as I do if the gods had 
given to them leisure for philosophical analysis — 
which they are much too busy to bother about — 
and the knack of verbally expressing their thoughts. 
When I read a naval despatch I always groan 
over it as an awful throwing away of the most 
splendid opportunities. I always long to have 
been in the place of the writer, to have seen what 
he saw, to know what he knew, and to teB the 
world in living phrase what tremendous deeds 
were really done. Naval despatches are the baldest 
of documents, cold, formal, technical, most for- 
biddingly uninspiring. Whenever I ask naval 



40 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

officers why they do not put into despatches the 
vivid details which sometimes find their way into 
private letters they glare at me, and even their 
beautiful courtesy can scarcely keep back the 
sniff of contempt. "Despatches," say they, "are 
written for the information ot the Admiralty." 
That is a complete answer under the Naval Code. 
The despatches, which make one groan, are written 
for the information of the Admiralty, not to thrill 
poor creatures such as you and me. A naval 
officer cares only for his record at the Admiralty 
and for his reputation among those of his own 
craft. If a newspaper calls Lieutenant A — B — 
a hero, and writes enthusiastically of his valour, 
he shudders as would a modest woman if publicly 
praised for her chastity. Valour goes with the 
Service, it is a part of the Soul of the Navy. It is 
taken for granted and is not to be talked or written 
about. And so with those other qualities that 
spring from the traditions of the Navy — the 
chivalry which risks British lives to save those of 
drowning enemies, the tenderness which binds up 
their wounds, the honours paid to their dead. 
All these things, which the Royal Navy never 
forgets and the German Navy for the most part 
has never learned, are taken for granted and 
are not to be talked of or written about. 



It is inevitable from the nature of its training 
that the Navy should be intensely self-centred. 
It one catches a boy when he has but recently 
emerged from the nursery, teaches him throughout 
his active life that there is but one work fit for 
the service of man, dedicates him to it by the 



A BAND OF BROTHERS 41 

strictest discipline, cuts him off by the nature 
of his daily life from all intimate contact with or 
understanding of the world which moves upon 
land, his imagination will be atrophied by disuse. 
He will become absorbed into the Naval life which 
is a life entirely of its own, apart and distinct 
from all other lives. There is a deep gulf set 
between the Naval life and all other lives which 
very few indeed of the Navy ever seek to cross. 
Their attitude towards civilians is very like that 
of the law-making statesman of old who said: 
"The people have nothing to do with the laws 
except to obey them." If the Navy troubled to 
think of civilians at all — it never does unless they 
annoy it with their futile chatter in Parliament 
and elsewhere — it would say: "Civilians have 
nothing to do with the Navy except to pay for 
it." Keen as is the imaginative foresight of the 
Navy in regard to everything which concerns its 
own honour and effectiveness, it is utterly lacking 
in any sympathetic imaginative understanding of 
the intense civilian interest in itself and in its 
work. We poor creatures who stand outside, I 
who write and you who read, do in actual fact 
love the Navy only a little less devotedly than the 
Navy loves its own Service. We long to under- 
stand it, to help it, and to pay for it. We know 
what we owe to it, but we would ask, in all proper 
humility, that now and then the Navy would 
realise and appreciate the certain fact that it 
owes some little of its power and success to us. 

I cannot in a formula define the collective Soul 
of the Navy. It is a moral atmosphere which cannot 
be chemically resolved. It is a subtle and elusive 
compound of tradition, self sacrifice, early training, 



42 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

willing discipline, youth, simplicity, valour, chivalry, 
lack of imagination, and love of the Service — and 
the greatest of these is Love. I have tried to 
indicate what it is, how it. has given to this wonder- 
ful Navy of ours 8 terrible unity, a terrible force, 
and an even more terrible intelligence; how it 
has transformed a body of men into a gigantic 
spiritual Power which expresses its might in the 
forms and means of naval warfare. I cannot 

exactly define it, but I can in a humble faltering 
way do my best to reveal it in its working. 



CHAPTER II 

THE COMING OF WAR 

Our Navy has played the great game of war by 
sea for too many hundreds of years ever to under- 
rate its foes. It is even more true of the sea than 
of the land that the one thing sure to happen is 
that which is unexpected. Until they have meas- 
ured by their own high standards the quality 
of an enemy, our officers and men rate him in 
valour, in sea skill, and in masterful ingenuity as 
fully the equal of themselves. Until August 1914 
the Royal Navy had never fought the German, 
and had no standards of experience by which to 
assay him. The Navy had known the maritime 
nations of Europe and fought them many times, 
but the Germans, a nation of landsmen artificially 
converted into sailors within a single generation, 
were a problem both novel and baffling. Eighteen 
years before the War, Germany had no navy 
worth speaking of in comparison with ours; during 
those fateful years she built ships and guns, trained 
officers and men, and secured her sea bases on 
the North Sea and in the Baltic at a speed and 
with a concentrated enthusiasm which were wholly 
wonderful and admirable. "The Future of Ger- 
many lies on the water," cried the Kaiser one day, 
and his faithful people took up the cry. "We 

4:5 



44 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

here and now challenge Britain upon her chosen 
element. ,J Quite seriously and soberly the German 
Navy Law of 1900 issued this challenge, and the 
Fatherland settled down to its prodigious task 
with a serene confidence and an extraordinary 
energy which won for it the ungrudging respect 
of its future foes. 

Perhaps the Royal Navy in those early years 
of the twentieth century, and especially in 1913 
and 1914, became just a little bit infected by the 
mental disease of exalting everything German, 
which had grown into an obsession among many 
Englishmen. At home during the War men 
oppressed by their enemy's land power, would 
talk as if one German cut in two became two 
Germans. German organisation, German educa- 
tional training, German mechanical and scientific 
skill are very good, but they are not superhuman. 
Their failures, like those of other folk, are fully 
as numerous as their successes. In trade they 
won many triumphs over us because British 
trading methods were individualistic and were 
totally lacking in national direction and support. 
But the Royal Navy is in every respect wholly 
distinct from every other British institution. It 
is the one and only National Service which has 
always declined to recognise in its practice the 
British policy of muddling through. It is the one 
Service with a mind and an iron Soul of its very 
own. So that when Germany set to work to 
create out of nothing a navy to compete with our 
own, she was up against a vast spiritual power 
which she did not understand, the Soul of the 
Navy, that unifying dominating force which gives 
to it an incomparable strength. She was up, too, 



THE COMING OF WAR 15 

against that experience of the sea and of sea 
warfare in a race of islanders which had been living 

and growing since the days of King Alfred. The 
wonderful thing is this: not that the German Navy 
has at no point been able to bear comparison with 
ours — in design of ships, in quality and weight of 
guns, in sea cunning, in sea training and in hardi- 
hood — but that in the few short years of the 
present century the German Navy should have 
been built at all, manned at all, trained at all. 

As the German Navy grew, and our ships came 
in contact with those of the Germans, especially 
upon foreign stations, our naval officers and men 
came to regard their future foes with much respect 
and even with admiration. We knew how great a 
task the Germans had set to themselves, and were 
astonished at the speed with which they made 
themselves efficient. I have often been told that 
during the years immediately before the war, the 
relations between English and German naval of- 
ficers and men were more close than those be- 
tween English officers and men and the sailors 
of any other navy. It became recognised that 
in the Germans we should have loemen of un- 
doubted gallantry and of no less undoubted skill. 
There are few officers arid men in our Fleets who 
do not know personally and admire their opposite 
numbers upon the enemy's side, and though our 
foes have in many ways broken the rules of war 
as understood and practised by us, one never 
hears the Royal Navy call the Germans "pirates." 
Expressions such as this one are left to civilians. 
When Mr. Ghurchill announced that the officers 
and crews of captured U boats would be treated 
differently from those taken in surface ships, the 



46 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

Navy strongly disapproved. To them it seemed 
that the responsibility for breaches of international 

law and practice lay not with naval officers and 

men, whoso duty it was to carry out the orders 
of the superiors, but that it lay with the superiors 
who gave those orders. To retaliate upon sub- 
ordinate officers and men for the crimes of their 
political chiefs seemed cowardly, and worse — it 
struck a blow at the whole fabric of naval discipline 
not only in the German but in every other Service, 
including our own. Our officers saw more clearly 
than did the then First Lord that no Naval Service 
can remain efficient for a day if it be encouraged 
to discriminate between the several orders con- 
veyed to it, and to claim for itself a moral right 
to select what shall be obeyed and what diso- 
beyed. 

Germany had no maritime traditions and a 
scanty seafaring population to assist her. Her 
seaboard upon the North Sea is a maze of shallows 
and sandbanks, through which devious channels 
leading to her naval and commercial bases are 
kept open only by continuous dredging. God has 
made Plymouth Sound, Spit head and the Firth of 
Forth; the Devil, it is alleged, has been responsible 
for Scapa and the Pent land Firth in winter; but 
man, German man, has made the navigable mouths 
of the Elbe, the Weser and the Ems. The Baltic 
is an inland sea upon which the coasting trade had 
for centuries been mainly in the hands of Scandi- 
navians. Until late in the nineteenth century 
Germany was one of the least maritime of all 
nations; almost at a leap she sprang into the 
position of one of the greatest. It is said that 
peoples get the governments which they deserve; 



THE COMING OF WAR 47 

it is certainly true that when peoples are blind 
their governments shut their eyes. Jn the Country 

of the Blind the one-eyed man is not King; he is 
flung out for having 11k: impertinence to pretend 
to see. In a state of blindness or of careless 
indifference we made Germany a present of Heligo- 
land in 1890. It looked a poor thing, a crumbling 
bit of waste roek, and when the Kaiser asked for 
it he received the gift almost without discussion. 
Both our Government and Court at that time 
were almost rabidly pro-German. We all cheru bed 
so much suspicion of France and Russia that we 
had none left to spare for Germany. Heligoland 
was then of no great use to us, but it was of in- 
calculable value to our future enemies. A German 
Heligoland fortified, equipped with airship sheds 
and long-distance wire-less, a shelter for submarines, 
was to the new German Navy only second in 
value to the Kiel Canal. Islands do not "com- 
mand" anything beyond range of their guns, 
especially when they have no harbours; but 
Heligoland, though it in no sense commanded the 
approach to the German bases, was mi invaluable 
outpost and observation station. It is a little 
island of crumbling red rock, preserved only by 
man's labour from vanishing into the sea; it is 
a mile long and less than one-third of a mile wide; 
it is 28 miles from the nearest mainland. Yet 
when we gave to Germany this scrap of wasting 
rock, we gave her the equivalent in naval value 
of a fleet. We secured her North Sea bases 
from our sudden attacks, and we gave her an 
observation station from which she could direct 
attacks against ourselves. 

Heligoland, a free gift from us, was the first 



48 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

asset, a most valuable asset, which Germany was 
able to place to the credit side of her naval balance 
sheet. Other assets were rapidly acquired. In 
1898 the building of the new navy seriously began, 
in 1900 was passed the famous German Navy 
Law setting forth a continuous programme of 
expansion, the back alley between the North Sea 
and the Baltic was cut through the isthmus of 
Schleswig-Holstein, and Germany as a Sea Power 
rose into being. The British people, at first 
amused and slightly contemptuous, became alarmed, 
and the Royal Navy, always watchful, never 
boastful, never undervaluing any possible oppo- 
nent, settled down to deal in its own supremely 
efficient fashion with the German Menace. 

Neither the British people nor the Royal Navy 
were lacking in confidence in themselves, but 
neither the people nor the Navy — we are, perhaps, 
the least analytical race on earth — realised the 
immovable foundation upon which their coi dence 
was based. The people were wise; they simply 
trusted to the Navy and gave to it whatever it 
asked. But the Navy, though fully alive to the 
value of its own traditions, training, and centuries- 
old skill, did not fully understand that the source 
of its own immense striking force was moral rather 
than material. Like its critics it thought over 
much in machines, and when it saw across the 
North Sea the outpouring of ships and guns and 
men which Germany called her Navy, it became 
not a little anxious about the result of a sudden 
unforeseen collision. It was, if anything, over 
anxious. 

But while this is true of the Navy as a whole, 
it is not true of the higher naval command. Away 



THE COMING OF WAR 49 

hidden in Whitehall, immersed in the study of 
problems for which the data were known and 
from which no secrets were hid, sat those who had 
taken the measure of the German efforts and 
gauged the value of them more justly than could 
the Germans themselves. They, the silent ones, 
— who never talked to representatives of the Press 
or inspired articles in the newspapers — knew that 
the German ships, especially the all-big-gun ships, 
generically but rather misleadingly called "Dread- 
noughts," were in nearly every class inferior copies 
of our own ships of two or three years earlier. 
The Royal Navy designed and built the first 
Dreadnought at Portsmouth in fifteen months, 
and preserved so rigid a secrecy about her details 
that she was a "mystery ship" till actually in 
commission. This lead of fifteen months, so skil- 
fully and silently acquired, became in practice 
three years, for it reduced to waste paper all the 
German designs. The first Dreadnought was com- 
missioned by us on December 11th, 1906; it 
was not until May 3rd, 1910, that the Germans 
put into service the first Nassaus, which were 
inferior copies. Our lead gained in 1906 was 
more than maintained, and each batch of German 
designs showed that step by step they had to 
wait upon us to reveal to them the path of naval 
progress. With us the upward rush was extraor- 
dinarily rapid; with the Germans it was slow 
and halting — they were slow to grasp what we 
were about and were then slow to interpret in 
steel those of our intentions which they were able 
to discern. Once our Navy had adopted the 
revolutionary idea of the all-big-gun ship — the 
design was perhaps an evolution rather than a 



50 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

revolution — its constructors and designers devel- 
oped the principle with the most astonishing 
rapidity. The original Dreadnought was out of 
date in the designers' minds within a year of her 
completion. After two or three years she was what 
the Americans call "a back number," and when 
the War broke out. we had in hand — some of 
them nearly completed — the groat class of Queen 
Elizabeths with 25 knots of speed and eight 15-inch 
guns, vessels as superior to the first Dreadnought 
in lighting force as she was herself superior to 
the light German battleships which her appearance 
cast upon the scrap heap. And Germany, in 
spite of her patient efforts, her system of espionage 
— which rarely seemed to discover anything of 
real importance — and her outpouring of gold, 
had even then as her best battleships vessels little 
better than our first Dreadnought. It is scarcely 
an exaggeration to say that the five Queen Eliza- 
beths and the five Royal Sovereigns which we put 
into commission during the war, equipped with 
eighty 15-inch guns, could have taken on with 
ease the whole of the German battle fleet as it 
existed in August 1914. Up to the outbreak of 
war, at each stage in the race for weight of guns, 
power and speed, Britain remained fully two 
years ahead of Germany in quality and a great 
deal more than two years ahead in magnitude of 
output. During the war, as I will show later on, 
the British lead was prodigiously increased and 
accelerated. 

In its inmost heart, and especially in the heart 
of the higher command, the Royal Navy knew 
that German designers of big ships were but pale 
copyists of their own, and that the shipyards of 



THE COMING OF WAR 51 

Danzig and Stettin and Hamburg could not 
compete in speed or in quantity with its own 
yards and those of its contractors in England 
and Scotland. And yet knowing these things, 
there was an undercurrent of anxiety ever present 
both in the Navy and in those circles within its 
sphere of influence. It seemed to some anxious 
minds — especially of civilian naval students — that 
what was known could not be the whole truth, and 
that the Germans — belief in whose ingenuity and 
resources had become an obsession with many 
people — must have some wonderful unknown ships 
and still more wonderful guns hidden in the deep 
recesses behind the Frisian sandbanks. In those 
days, a year or two before August 1914, men who 
ought to have known better would talk gravely of 
secret shipyards where stupendous vessels were 
under construction, and of secret gunshops where 
the superhuman Krupps were at work upon de- 
signs which would change the destinies of nations. 
Anyone who has ever seen a battleship upon a 
building slip, and knows how few are the slips 
which can accommodate them and how few are 
the builders competent to make them, and how 
few can build the great guns and gun mountings, 
will smile at the idea of secret yards and secret 
construction. Details may be kept secret, as 
with the first Dreadnought and with many of our 
super-battleships, but the main dimensions and 
purpose of a design are glaringly conspicuous to 
the eyes of the Royal Navy's Intelligence Service. 
One might as well try to hide a Zeppelin as a 
battleship. 

As with ships so with guns. I will deal in 
another chapter with the Navy's belief, fully 



:>2 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

justified in action, in the bigger gun- the straight 

shooting, hard hitting naval gun of ever-expanding 

calibre and in the higher speed of ships which 

enables the bigger gun to be used at its most 
effective range. There was nothing new in this 
belief; it was the ripe fruit of all naval experience. 
Speed without hitting power is of little use in the 
battle line; hitting power without speed gives 
to an enemy the advantage of manoeuvre and 
of escape; but speed and hitting power, both 
greater than those of an enemy, spell certain 
annihilation for him. He can neither tight nor 
run away. I oven sufficient light and sea room 
for a tight to the finish, he must be destroyed. 
The North Sea deadlock is due to lack of room. 

Our guns developed in size and in power as 
rapidly as did our great ships in the capacity to 
carry and use them. Krupps have a very famous 
name, made famous beyond their merits by the 
extravagant adulation which for years past has 
been poured upon them in our own country by 
our own people. The Germans are a race of 
egotists, but they have never exalted themselves, 
and everything that is German, to the utterly 
absurd heights to which many fearful Englishmen 
have exalted them in England. Krupps have 
been bowed down io and almost worshipped as 
the Gods of Terror. Their supreme capacity for 
inventing and constructing the best possible guns 
has been taken as proved beyond the need of demon- 
stration. Hut Krupps were not and are not super- 
men; they have had to learn their trade like 
more humble folk, and naval gun-making is not a 
trade which can be taken up one day and made 
perfect on the next. Krupps are good gun- 



THE COMING OF WAR 53 

makers, but our own naval gur. shops have for 
years outclassed (hem at every point — in design, 
in size, in power, in quality, and in speed of 

production. The long wire-wound naval gun, a 

miracle of patient workmanship, is British not 
German* While Krupps were labouring to make 
11-inch guns which would shoot straight and not 

"droop" at the muzzle, our Navy was designing 
and making 12-inch and 13,5-inch weapons of 
far greater power and accuracy; when Krupps 
had at last achieved good 12-inch guns, we were 
turning out rapidly 15-inch weapons of equal 
precision and far greater power. In naval guns 
Krupps lag far behind us. And even in land 
guns- -well, the huge seige howitzers which bat- 
tered Liege and Namur into powder, came not 
from Essen but from the Austrian Skoda Works at 
Pilsenl Arid among field guns, the best of the 
best by universal acclaim is the French SoiztmU 
Quinze, in design and workmanship entirely the 
product of French artistic skill. War is a sad 
leveller, and it has not been very kind to Krupps. 

Collectively, the Navy is a fount of serene 
knowledge and wisdom, and has been fully con- 
scious of its superiority in men, in ships, and in 
guns, but individual naval officers afloat or ashore 
are not always either learned or wise. Foolish 
things were thought and said in 1913 and in 1014, 
which one can now recall with a smile and charitably 
endeavour to forget. 

The Royal Navy was, and is, as superior to 
that of Germany in officers and men as in ships 
and in guns. Indeed the one is the direct and 
inevitable consequence of the other. Ships and 
guns are not imposed upon the Navy by some 



54 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

outside intelligence; they are secretions from 
the brains and experience and traditions of the 
Service itself; they are the expressions in ma- 
chinery of its Soul. One always comes back to 
this fundamental fact when making any comparison 
of relative values in men or in machines. It 
was the Navy's Soul which conceived and made 
ready the ships and the guns. The officers and 
men are the temporary embodiment of that im- 
mortal Soul; it is preserved and developed in 
them, and through them is passed on to succeeding 
generations in the Service. 

Though the German Navy had not had time 
or opportunity to evolve within itself that dominant 
moral force which I have called a naval Soul, it 
contained both officers and men of notable fighting 
quality and efficiency. The Royal Navy no more 
under-rated the personality of its German oppo- 
nents than it under-rated their ships and their 
guns. We English, though in foreign eyes we 
may appear to be self-satisfied, even bumptious, 
are at heart rather diffident. No nation on earth 
publicly depreciates itself as we do; no nation 
is so willing to proclaim its own weaknesses and 
follies and crimes. Much of this self-deprecia- 
tion is mere humbug, little more sincere than our 
confession on Sunday that we are " miserable 
sinners," but much of it is the result of our native 
diffidence. No Scotsman was ever mistrustful of 
himself or of his race, but very many Englishmen 
quite genuinely are. And the Navy being, as it 
always has been, English of the English, tends 
to be modest, even diffident. It is always learning, 
always testing itself, always seeking after improve- 
ment; it realises out of the fullness of its ex- 



THE COMING OF WAR 55 

perience how much still remains to be learned, 
and becomes inevitably diffident of its very great 
knowledge and skill. No man is so modest as 
the genuine unchallengeable expert. 

If one cannot improvise ships and guns of the 
highest quality by an exercise of the Imperial will, 
still less can one improvise the officers and men 
who have to man and use them. But Germany 
tried to do both. The German Navy could not 
secrete its ships and guns, for there was no consider- 
able German navy a score of years ago; the 
machines were designed and provided for it by 
Vulcan and Schichau and Krupps, and the per- 
sonnel to fight them had to be collected and trained 
from out of the best available material. The 
officers were largely drawn from Prussian families 
which for generations had served in the Army, and 
had in their blood that sense of discipline and 
warlike fervour which are invaluable in the leaders 
of any fighting force. But they had in them also 
the ruthless temper of the German Army, which 
we have seen revealed in its frightful worst in 
Belgium, Serbia and Poland; they knew nothing 
of that kindly chivalrous spirit which is born out 
of the wide salt womb of the Sea Mother. Many 
of these officers, though lacking in the Sea Spirit, 
were highly competent at their work. Von Spee's 
Pacific Squadron, which beat Craddock off Coronel 
and was a little later annihilated by Sturdee off 
the Falkland Islands, was, officer for officer and 
man for man, almost as good as our best. The 
German Pacific Squadron was nearer the realisa- 
tion of the naval Soul than was any other part 
of the German Navy. Admiral Von Spee was a 
gallant and chivalrous gentleman, and the captain 



56 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

> 

of the Emden, ingenious, gay, humorous, unspoiled 
in success and undaunted in defeat, was as English 
in spirit as he was unlike most of his compatriots 
in sentiment. The Navy and the public at home 
were right when they acclaimed Von Spee and 
von Miiller as seamen worthy to rank with their 
own Service. 

The German Pacific Squadron, being on foreign 
service, had not only picked officers of outstanding 
merit, but also long-service crews of unpressed 
men. It was, therefore, in organisation and per- 
sonnel much more akin to our Navy than was 
the High Seas Fleet at home in which the men 
were for the most part conscripts on short service 
(three years) from the Baltic, Elbe and inland 
provinces. In our Service the sailors and marines 
join for twenty-one years, and in actual practice 
frequently serve very much longer. They begin 
as children in training-ships and in the schools 
attached to Marine barracks, and often continue 
in middle life as grave men in the petty and 
warrant officer ranks. The Naval Service is the 
work of their lives just as it is with the com- 
missioned officers. But in the German High Seas 
Fleet, with its three years of forced service, a 
man was no sooner half-trained than his time 
was up and he gladly made way for a raw recruit. 
The German crews were not of the Sea nor of the 
Service. During the war, no doubt, they became 
better trained. The experienced seamen were not 
discharged and the general level of skill arose; 
the best were passed into the submarines which 
alone of the Fleet were continuously at work on 
the sea. In our own Navy, in consequence of 
the very great increase in the number of ships, 



THE COMING OF WAR 57 

both large and small, the professional sailors had 
to be diluted by the calling up of Naval Reservists, 
and by the expansion of the Royal Naval Volunteer 
Reserve. But unlike Germany we had, fortunately 
for ourselves, an almost limitless maritime popu- 
lation from which to draw the new naval elements. 
Fishermen at the call of their country flocked into 
the perilous service of mine sweeping and patrol- 
ling, young men from the seaports readily joined 
the Volunteer detachments in training for the 
great ships, dilution was carried on deftly and with 
so clear a judgment that the general level of 
efficiency all round was almost completely main- 
tained. That this was possible is not so remark- 
able as it sounds. The Royal Navy of the fighting 
ships, even after the war expansion, remained a 
very small select service of carefully chosen men. 
Half of its personnel was professional and per- 
fectly trained, the second and new half was so 
mingled and stirred up with the first that the 
professional leaven permeated the whole mass. 
The Army which desired millions had to take what 
it could get; but the Navy, which counts its men 
in tens of thousands only, could pick and choose 
of the best. In the Army the old Regulars were 
either killed or swamped under the flood of new 
entrants; in the Navy the professionals remained 
always predominant. It was very characteristic 
of the proud exclusiveness of our Royal Navy, 
very characteristic of its haughty Soul, that the 
temporary officers were allotted rank marks which 
distinguished them at a glance, even of civilian 
eyes, from the regular Service. 

Though, as events proved, the Royal Navy need 
have felt little anxiety about the result of a fair 



58 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

trial of strength with its German opponents, there 
was one ever-present justification for that deeper 
apprehension with which the Navy in peace 
regarded an outbreak of war. It really was feared 
lest our Government should leave to the Germans 
the moment for beginning hostilities. It was 
feared lest while politicians were waiting and seeing 
the Germans would strike suddenly at their 
"selected moment," and by a well-planned torpedo 
and submarine attack in time of supposed peace, 
would put themselves in a position of substantial 
advantage. There was undoubted ground for this 
fear. The German Government has not, and never 
has had, any scruples; it has no moral standards; 
if before a declaration of war it could have struck 
hard and successfully at our Fleets it would have 
seized the opportunity without hesitation. And 
realising this with the clarity of vision which 
distinguishes the Sea Service, the Navy feared 
lest its freedom of action should be fatally restricted 
at the very moment when its hands needed to be 
most free. 

A distinguished naval captain — now an admiral 
— once put the matter before me plainly from the 
naval point of view : 

"If the Germans secretly mobilise at a moment 
when a third of our big ships are out of com- 
mission or are under repair, they may not only 
by a sudden torpedo attack cripple our battle 
squadrons, but may open the seas to their own 
cruisers and submarines. We might, possibly 
should, recover in time to deal with an invasion, 
but in the meantime our overseas trade, on which 
you people depend at home for food and raw 
materials, would have been destroyed. And until 



THE COMING OF WAR 59 

we had fully recovered, not a man or a gun could 
be sent over sea to help France." 

" Surely we should have some warning," I 
objected. 

"You won't get it from Germany," said he 
gravely. "The little old man (Roberts) is right. 
Germany will strike when Germany's hour has 
struck. If we are ready she will have no chance 
at all and knows it; she will not give us a chance 
to be ready. When she wants to cover a secret 
mobilisation she will invite parties of journalists, 
or provincial mayors, or village greengrocers to 
visit Berlin and to see for themselves how peaceful 
her intentions are!" 

That is how the Navy felt and talked during 
the months immediately before the War, and who 
shall say that their apprehensions were not well 
founded? What it feared was unquestionably pos- 
sible, even probable. But happily for the Navy, 
and for these Islands and the Empire which it 
guards, those whom the gods seek to destroy 
they first drive mad. The wisdom of Germany's 
rulers was by all of us immensely over-rated. 
They fell into the utter blindness of unimaginative 
stupidity. They understood us so little that they 
thought us sure to desert our friends rather than 
risk the paint upon our ships and the skins upon 
our fat and slothful bodies. They watched us 
quarrelling among ourselves, talking savagely of 
fighting one another in Ireland — we went on 
doing these things until July 28th, 1914, four days 
before Germany attacked Belgium! — and failed 
to realise that the ancient fighting spirit was as 
strong in us as ever, however much it might seem 
to be smothered under the rubbish of politics and 



60 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

social luxury. And meanwhile, during those in- 
tensely critical weeks of July, while Parliament 
chattered about Ulster and politicians looked 
hungrily for the soft spots in one another's throats, 
the Royal Navy was quietly, unostentatiously 
preparing for war. What the Navy then did, — 
moving in all things with its own silent, serene, 
masterful efficiency and grimly thanking God for 
the dense political gas clouds behind which it 
could conceal its movements from the enemy, — 
saved not only Great Britain and the Empire; 
it saved the civilisation of the world. 

Blindly Germany went on with her preparations 
for war against France and Russia, including in 
the programme the swallowing up of little Belgium, 
and left us wholly out of her calculations. The 
German battle Fleet, which had been engaged 
in peace manoeuvres, was cruising off the Norwegian 
coast. Grand Admiral Von Tirpitz had never 
expected us to intervene, and no naval preparations 
were made. The Germans were in no position to 
interfere with our disposition, or to move their 
cruisers upon our trade communications. But all 
through those later days of imminent crisis the 
English First Fleet lay mobilised at Portland, 
whither it had moved from Spithead, until one 
night it slipped silently away and disappeared into 
the northern mists. The Second and Third Fleets 
had been filled up and were completely ready for 
war in the early summer dawn of August 3rd. 
The big ships rushed to their war stations stretch- 
ing from the Thames to the Orkneys and com- 
manding both outlets from the North Sea; the 
destroyers and submarines swarmed in the Channel 
and off the sand-locked German bases. The hour 



THE COMING OF WAR 61 

had struck, everything had been done exactly as 
had been planned. The German Fleet crept into 
safety through the back door of the Kattegat and 
Kiel, and on the evening of August 4th, the British 
Government declared war. 

Germany, who thought to catch the Navy asleep, 
was herself caught. She had never believed that 
we either would or could fight for the integrity of 
Belgium. She went on blindly in her appointed 
way until suddenly her sight returned in a flash 
of bitter realisation that the Royal Navy, without 
firing a single shot, had won the first tremendous 
decisive, irreparable battle in the coming world's 
war. Her chance of success at sea had disappeared 
for ever. Before her lay a long cruel dragging 
fight with the seas closed to her merchant ships 
and her whole Empire in a state of blockade. 
No wonder that then, and since, Germany's fiercest 
passion of hate has been directed against us, and 
above all against that Royal Navy which shields 
us and strikes for us. Before a shot had been 
fired she saw herself outwitted, outmanoeuvred, 
outfought. ' ' Gott strafe England ! " 



CHAPTER III 

THE GREAT VICTORY 

In naval warfare there are many actions but few 
battles. An action is any engagement between 
war vessels of any size, but a battle is a contest 
between ships of the battle-line — sometimes called 
"capital ships" upon the results of which de- 
pends the vital issues of a war. During the whole 
of the long contest with Napoleon, there were only 
two battles of this decisive kind — the Nile and 
Trafalgar. 

And although the fighting by sea and land 
went on for ten years after Trafalgar had given 
to us the supreme control of the world's seas, 
there were no more naval battles. Battles at 
sea are very rare because, when fought out, they 
are so crushingly decisive. This characteristic 
feature of the great naval battle has been greatly 
emphasised by modern conditions. Upon land 
armies have outgrown the very earth itself; fight- 
ing frontiers have become lines of trenches; battles 
have become the mere swaying of these trench 
lines — a ripple here or there marks a success or 
failure — but the lines *' re-formed remain. Even 
after weeks or months of fighting, if the lines 
remain unbroken, neither side has reached a 
decision. War upon land between great forces is 
a long drawn-out agony of attrition. 

62 



THE GREAT VICTORY 63 

But while battles upon land have become much 
less decisive than in the simpler days of small 
armies and feeble weapons, fighting upon the 
sea has become much quicker, much more crush- 
ingly final, in its effects and results than in the 
days of our grandfathers. Speed and gun power 
are now everything. The faster and more power- 
ful fleet — more powerful in its capacity for dealing 
accurate and destructive blows — can annihilate 
its enemy completely within the brief hours of a 
single day. The more powerful and faster his 
ships the less will the victor himself suffer. Only 
under one condition can a defeated fleet escape 
annihilation, and that is when the lack of light or 
of sea room snatches from the victor a final de- 
cision. If an enemy can get away under shelter 
of his shore fortifications, or within the protection 
of his mine-fields, he can defy pursuit; but if 
there be ample room and daylight Speed and Power 
wielded by men such as ours, will prevail with 
absolute mathematical certainty — the losers will 
be sunk, the victors will, by comparison, be little 
damaged. Every considerable engagement during 
the war has added convincing proof to the con- 
clusions which our Navy drew from the decisive 
battle in the Sea of Tsushima between the Japanese 
and the Russians, and the not less decisive action 
upon a smaller scale in which the Americans 
destroyed the Spanish squadron off Santiago, Cuba. 
In both cases the losers were destroyed while the 
victors suffered little hurt. These outstanding 
lessons were not lost upon the Royal Navy, its 
officers had themselves seen both fights, and so 
in its silent way the Navy pressed upon its course 
always seeking after more speed, more gun power, 



64 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

and above all more numbers. "Only numbers 
can annihilate," said Napoleon, and what the 
Emperor declared to be true of land fighting is 
the more true of fighting by sea. Only numbers 
can annihilate. 

Upon the evening of August 4th, 1914, I was 
sitting in a London office beside a ticking tape 
machine awaiting the message that the Germans 
had declined our ultimatum to withdraw from 
Belgium, and that war had been declared. "There 
will be a big sea battle this evening," observed my 
companion. "There has been a big battle," ob- 
served I, "but it is now over." Although he 
and I used similar language we attached to the 
words very different meanings. He thought, as 
the bulk of the British people thought at that 
time, that the British and German battle fleets 
would meet and fight off the Frisian Islands. But 
I meant, and felt sure, that the last thing our 
Grand Fleet desired was to fight in restricted and 
dangerous waters, amid the perils of mines and 
submarines, when it had already won the greatest 
fight of the war without firing a shot or risking a 
single ship or man. There had been no " battle " 
in the popular sense, but there had in fact been 
achieved a tremendous dicisive victory which 
through all the long months to follow would 
dominate the whole war by sea and by land. Our 
great battleships were at that moment cruising 
between Scapa Flow in the Orkneys and the 
Cromarty Firth on the north-eastern shores of 
Scotland. Our fastest battle cruisers were in the 
Firth of Forth together with many of the better 
pre-Dreadnought battleships which, though too 
slow for a fleet action, had heavy batteries available 



THE GREAT VICTORY 65 

for a close fight in narrow waters. Many other 
older and slower battleships and cruisers were in 
the Thames. The narrow straits of Dover were 
thickly patrolled by destroyers and submarines, 
and more submarines and destroyers were on 
watch off the mouths of the Weser, the Jade, the 
Elbe and the Ems. Light cruisers hovered still 
farther to the north where the Skagerrak opens 
between Denmark and the Norwegian coast. The 
North Sea had become a mare clausum — no longer, 
as the mapmakers term it, a German Ocean, but 
one which at a single stroke had become over- 
whelmingly British. 

Take a map of the North Sea and consider with 
me for a moment the relative strengths and dis- 
positions of the opposing battle fleets. There 
was nothing complicated or super-subtle about 
the Royal Navy's plans; on the contrary they 
had that beautiful compelling simplicity which is 
the characteristic feature of all really great designs 
whether in war or in peace. 

There are two outlets to the North Sea, one wide 
to the north and west beyond the Shetlands, the 
other narrow and shallow to the south-west through 
the Straits of Dover. The Straits are only twenty- 
one miles wide; opposite the north of Scotland 
the Sea is 300 miles wide. But before German 
battleships or cruisers could get away towards 
the wide north-western outlet beyond the Shet- 
lands they would have to steam some 400 miles 
north of Heligoland. Except for the Pacific Squad- 
ron based upon Tsing-tau in the Far East and 
cruising upon the east and west coasts of Mexico, 
all the fleets of our enemy were at his North 
Sea ports or in the Baltic — a land-locked sheet 



(56 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

of water which for the moment is out of our 
picture. From Heligoland to Scapa Flow in the 
Orkneys — where Admiral Jellicoe had his head- 
quarters and where he had under his hand twenty- 
two of our most powerful battleships — is less than 
550 miles. Jellicoe had also with him large num- 
bers of armoured and light cruisers. In the Firth 
of Forth, less than 500 miles from Heligoland, 
Admiral Beatty had five of the fastest and most 
powerful battle cruisers afloat and great quan- 
tities of lighter cruisers and destroyers. In the 
Thames, about 350 miles from Heligoland, lay 
most of our slower and less powerful pre-Dread- 
nought battleships and cruisers, vessels of a past 
generation in naval construction, but in their 
huge numbers and collective armaments a very 
formidable force to encounter in the narrow waters 
of the Straits of Dover. 

Three possible courses of action lay before the 
German Naval Staff. They had at their disposal 
seventeen battleships and battle cruisers built 
since the first Dreadnought revolutionised the battle 
line, but, as I have already pointed out, these 
vessels, class for class and gun for gun, were 
lighter, slower, and less well armed than were the 
twenty-seven great war vessels at the disposal 
of Jellicoe and Beatty. The Germans could have 
tried to break away to the north with their whole 
battle fleet, escorting all their lighter cruisers, in 
the hope that while the battle fleets were engaged 
the cruisers might escape round the north of Scot- 
land, and get upon our trade routes in the Atlantic. 
That was their first possible line of action — a 
desperate one, since Jellicoe and Beatty with 
much stronger forces lay upon the flank of their 



THE GREAT VICTORY 



67 



^Shetland l» 




Orkney 



Scale of Miles 



THE NORTH SEA. 



68 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

course to the north, and the preponderating strength 
and swiftness of our light and heavy cruisers would 
have meant, in all human probability, not only 
the utter destruction of the enemy's battle fleet 
but also the wiping out of his would-be raiders. 
Our cruisers could have closed the passages between 
the Orkneys and Iceland long before the Germans 
could have reached them. This first heroic dash 
for the free spaces of the outer seas would have 
been so eminently gratifying to us that it is scarcely 
surprising that the Germans denied us its blissful 
realisation. 

The second possible course, apparently less 
heroic but in its ultimate results probably as 
completely destructive for the enemy as the first 
course, would have been to bear south-west, hugging 
the shallows as closely as might be possible, and 
to endeavour to break a way through the Straits 
of Dover and the English Channel. From Heligo- 
land to the Straits is over 350 miles, and we should 
have known all about the German dash long 
before they could have reached the Narrows. 
Those Narrow Seas are like the neck of a bottle 
which would have been corked most effectually 
by our serried masses of pre-Dreadnought battle- 
ships and cruisers interspersed by swarming hun- 
dreds of submarines and destroyers with their 
vicious torpedo stings. We can quite understand 
how the Germans, who had read Sir Percy Scott's 
observations of a month or two before on the 
deadliness of submarines in narrow waters, liked 
a dash for the Straits as little as they relished 
a battle with Jellicoe and Beatty in the far north, 
more especially as their line of retreat would have 
been cut off by the descent from their northern 



THE GREAT VICTORY 69 

fastnesses of our battle fleets. Not then, nor a 
week or two later when we were passing our 
Expeditionary Force across the Channel, did the 
Germans attempt to break through the Straits 
and cut us off from our Allies the French. 

The third course was the one which the Germans 
in fact took. It was the famous course of Brer 
Rabbit, to lie low and say nufnn', and to wait for 
happier times when perchance the raids of their 
own submarines, and our losses from mines, might 
so far diminish our fighting strength as to permit 
them to risk a Battle of the Giants with some 
little prospect of success. And in adopting this 
waiting policy they did what we least desired and 
what, therefore, was the safest for them and most 
embarrassing for us. Never at any time did we 
attempt to prevent the German battle fleets from 
coming out. We no more blockaded them than 
Nelson a hundred years earlier blockaded the 
French at Toulin and Brest. We maintained, 
as Nelson did, a perpetual unsleeping watch on 
the enemy's movements, but our desire always 
was the same as Nelson's — to let the enemy come 
out far enough to give us space and time within 
which to compass his complete and final destruc- 
tion. 

Although the Germans, by adopting a waiting 
policy, prevented the Royal Navy from fulfilling 
its first duty — the seeking out and destruction of 
an enemy's fighting fleets — their inaction em- 
phasised the completeness of the Victory of Brains 
and Soul which the Navy had won during those 
few days before the outbreak of war. It was 
because our mobilisation had been so prompt and 
complete, it was because the disposition of our 



70 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

fleets had been bo perfectly conceived, that the 
Germans dared not risk a battle with us in the 
open and were unable to send out their cruisers 
to cut off our trading ships and to break our 
eommunications with France. Although the 
enemy's fleets had not been destroyed, they had 
been rendered very largely impotent. We held, 
more completely than we did even after the crown- 
ing mercy of Trafalgar, the command of the seas 
of the world. The first great battle was blood- 
less but complete, it had won for us and for the 
civilised world a very great victory, and the 
Royal Navy had never in its long history more 
fully realised and revealed its tremendous uncon- 
querable Soul. 



It may be of some little interest, now that the 
veil of secrecy can be partly raised, to describe 
the opposing battle fleets upon which rested the 
decision of victory or defeat. Before the war it 
had become the habit of many critics, both naval 
and civilian, to exalt the striking power of the 
torpedo craft — both destroyers and submarines — 
and to talk of the great battleship as an obsolete 
monster, as some vast Mammoth at the mercy of 
a wasp with a poison sting. But the war has 
shown that the Navy was right to hold to the deep 
beliefs, the outcome of all past experience, that 
supremacy in the battle line means supremacy in 
Sea Control. The smaller vessels, cruisers, and 
mosquito craft, are vitally necessary for their 
several roles, — without them the great ships cannot 
carry out a commercial blockade, cannot protect 
trade or transports, cannot conduct those hundreds 



THE GREAT VICTORY 71 

of operations both of offence and defence which 
fall within the duties of a complete Navy. But 
the ultimate decision rests with the Battle Fleets. 
They are the Fount of Power. While they are 
supreme, the seas are free to the smaller active 
vessels; without such supremacy, the seas are 
closed to all craft, except to submarines and, as 
events have proved, to a large extent even to those 
under-water wasps. 

In August, 1914, our Battle Fleets available 
for the North Sea — and at the moment of supreme 
test no vessels, however powerful, which were 
not on the spot were of any account at all — were 
not at their full strength. The battleships were 
all at home — the ten Dreadnoughts, each with 
ten 12-inch guns, the four Orions, the four K.G.V.s 
and the four Iron Dukes, each with their ten 
13.5-inch guns far more powerful than the earlier 
Dreadnoughts, — and were all fully mobilised by 
August 3rd. But of our nine fast and invaluable 
battle cruisers as many as four were far away. 
The Australia was at the other side of the globe, 
and three others had a short time before been 
despatched to the Mediterranean. Beatty had the 
Lion, Queen Mary, and Princess Royal, each with 
eight 13.5-inch guns and twenty-nine knots of 
speed, in addition to the New Zealand, and In- 
vincible each with eight 12-inch guns. The First 
Lord of the Admiralty announced quite correctly 
that we had mobilised thirty-one ships of the 
battle line, but actually in the North Sea at their 
war stations upon that fateful evening of August 
4th — which now seems so long ago — Jellicoe and 
Beatty had twenty-seven only of first line ships. 
They were enough as it proved, but one rather 



72 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

grudged at that time, those three in the Medi- 
terranean and the Australia at the Antipodes. 
Had there been a battle of the Giants we should 
have needed them all, for only numbers can 
annihilate. Jellicoe had, in addition to those 
which I have reckoned, the Lord Nelson and 
Agamemnon — pre-Dreadnoughts, each with four 
12-inch guns and ten 9.2-inch guns — useful ships 
but not of the first battle line. 

Opposed to our twenty-seven available monsters 
the Germans had under their hands eighteen com- 
pleted vessels of their first line. I do not count 
in this select company the armoured cruiser 
Blucher, with her twelve 8-inch guns, which was 
sunk later on in the Dogger Bank action by the 
13.5-inch weapons of Beatty's great cruisers. 
Neither do I count the fine cruiser Goeben, a fast 
vessel with ten 11-inch guns which, like our three 
absent battle cruisers, was in the Mediterranean. 
The Goeben escaped later to the Dardanelles and 
ceased to be on the North Sea roll of the German 
High Seas Fleet. 

Germany had, then, eighteen battleships and 
battle cruisers, and had it been known to the 
public that our apparent superiority in available 
numbers was only 50 per cent, in the North Sea, 
many good people might have trembled for the 
safety of their homes and for the honour of their 
wives and daughters. But luckily they did not 
know, for they could with difficulty have been 
brought to understand that naval superiority rests 
more in speed and in quality and in striking 
power than in the mere numbers of ships. When 
I have said that numbers only can annihilate, 
I mean, of course, numbers of equal or superior 



THE GREAT VICTORY 73 

ships. In quality of ships and especially of men, 
in speed and in striking power, our twenty-seven 
ships had fully double the strength of the eighteen 
Germans who might have been opposed to them 
in battle. None of our vessels carried anything 
smaller — for battle — than 12-inch guns, and fifteen 
of them bore within their turrets the new 13.5-inch 
guns of which the weight of shell and destructive 
power were more than 50 per cent, greater than 
that of the earlier 12-inch weapons. On the 
other hand, four of the German battleships (the 
Nassau class) carried 11-inch guns and were fully 
two knots slower in speed than any of the British 
first line. Three of their battle cruisers also had 
11-inch guns. While therefore we had guns of 
12 and 13.5 inches the Germans had nothing more 
powerful to oppose to us than guns of 11 and 12 
inches. Ship for ship the Germans were about 
two knots slower than ourselves, so that we always 
had the advantage of manoeuvre, the choosing of 
the most effective range, and the power of pre- 
venting by our higher speed the escape of a defeated 
foe. Had the Germans come north into the open 
sea, we could have chosen absolutely, by virtue 
of our greater speed, gun power and numbers, the 
conditions under which an action should have 
been fought and how it should have been brought 
to a finish. 

An inch or two in the bore of a naval gun, a few 
feet more or less of length, may not seem much 
to some of my readers. But they should remember 
that the weight of a shell, and the weight of its 
explosive charge, vary as the cube of its diameter. 
A 12-inch shell is a third heavier than one of 
11 inches, while a 13.5-inch shell is more than 



74 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

one-half heavier than a 12-inch and twice as 
heavy as one of 11 inches only. The power of the 
bursting charge varies not as the weight, but as 
the square of the weight of a shell. The Germans 
were very slow to learn the naval lesson of the 
superiority of the bigger gun and the heavier 
shell. It was not until after the Dogger Bank 
action when Beatty's monstrous 13.5-inch shells 
broke in a terrible storm upon their lighter-armed 
battle cruisers that the truth fully came home to 
them. Had Jellicoe and Beatty fought the German 
Fleet in the wide spaces of the upper North Sea 
in August, 1914, we should have opposed a fighting 
efficiency in power and weight of guns of more 
than two to one. Rarely have the precious quali- 
ties of insight and foresight been more strikingly 
shown forth than in the superiority in ships, in 
guns, and in men that the Royal Navy was able 
to range against their German antagonists in those 
early days of August, when the fortunes of the 
Empire would have turned upon the chances of 
a naval battle. In the long contest waged between 
1900 and 1914, in the bloodless war of peace, the 
spiritual force of the Navy had gained the victory; 
the enemy had been beaten, and knew it, and 
thenceforward for many months, until the spring 
of 1916, he abode in his tents. Whenever he did 
venture forth it was not to give battle but to kill 
some women, some babes, and then to scuttle 
home to proclaim the dazzling triumph which 
"Gott" had granted to his arms. 



It may seem to many a fact most extraordinary 
that in August, 1914, not one of our great ships 



THE GREAT VICTORY 75 

of the first class — the so-called "super-Dread- 
noughts" — upon which we depended for the dom- 
ination of the seas and the security of the Em- 
pire, not one was more than three years old. 
The four Or ions — Orion, Conqueror, Thunderer 
and Monarch — were completed in 1911 and 1912. 
The four K.G. Fives — King George V, Centurion, 
Ajax, and Audacious in 1912 and 1913; and the 
four Iron Dukes — Iron Duke, Marlborough, Em- 
peror of India and Benbow — in 1914. All these 
new battleships carried ten 13.5-inch guns and 
had an effective speed of nearly 23 knots. The 
super-battle cruisers — Lion, Queen Mary and Prin- 
cess Royal — were completed in 1912, carried eight 
13.5-inch guns, and had a speed of over 29 knots. 
Upon these fifteen ships, not one of which was 
more than three years old, depended British Sea 
Power. The Germans had nothing, when the war 
broke out, which was comparable with these 
fifteen splendid monsters. Their first line battle- 
ships and battle cruisers completed in the corre- 
sponding years, from 1911 to 1914 — their "opposite 
numbers" as the Navy calls them — were not 
superior in speed, design and power of guns to 
our Dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers, 
which had already passed into the second class, 
and which, long before the war ended, had sunk 
to the third class. But the newness and over- 
whelming superiority of our true first line do not 
surprise those who realise that these fifteen great 
ships were the fine flower of our naval brains and 
soul. The new Navy of the three years immedi- 
ately preceding the war was simply the old Navy 
writ large. As the need had arisen, so had the 
Navy expanded to meet it. The designs for these 



76 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

fifteen ships did not fall down from Heaven; they 
were worked out in naval brains years before they 
found their material expression in steel. The vast 
ships issued forth upon the seas, crushingly superior 
to anything which our enemy could put into com- 
mission against us, because our naval brains were 
superior to his and our naval Soul was to his as 
a white glowing flame to a tallow candle. In a 
sentence, while Germany was laboriously copying 
our Dreadnoughts we had cast their designs aside, 
and were producing at a speed, with which he 
could not compete, Orions, K.G. Fives, Iron Dukes 
and Lions. 



The North Sea, large as it may appear upon a 
map, is all too small for the manoeuvres of swift 
modern fleets. No part of that stretch of water 
which lies south of the Dogger Bank — say, from 
the Yorkshire coast to Jutland — is far enough 
removed from the German bases to allow of a sure 
and decisive fleet action. There was no possibility 
here of a clean fight to a finish. An enemy might 
be hammered severely, some of his vessels might 
be sunk — Beatty showed the German battle cruisers 
what we could do even in a stern chase at full 
speed — but he could not be destroyed. On the 
afternoon and night of May 31st-June 1st, 1916, 
the Grand Fleet had the enemy enveloped and 
ripe for destruction, but were robbed of full vic- 
tory by mist and darkness and the lack of sea 
room. Nelson spoke with the Soul of the Navy 
when he declared that a battle was not won when 
any enemy ship was enabled to escape destruction. 
So while the divisions of the Grand Fleet, and 



THE GREAT VICTOR 77 

especially the fastest battle cruisers of some 
twenty-eight to twenty-nine knots speed (about 
thirty-three miles per hour) neglected no oppor- 
tunity to punish the enemy ships that might 
venture forth, what every man from Jellicoe to 
the smallest ship boy really longed and prayed 
for, was a brave ample battle in the deep wide 
waters of the north. Here there was room for a 
newer and greater Trafalgar, though even here the 
sea was none too spacious. Great ships, which 
move with the speed of a fairly fast train and 
shoot to the extreme limits of the visible horizon, 
really require a boundless Ocean in which to do 
their work with naval thoroughness. But the 
upper North Sea would have served, and there 
the Grand Fleet waited, ever at work though 
silent, ever watchfully ready for the Great Day. 
And while it waited it controlled by the mere fact 
of its tremendous power of numbers, weight, and 
position the destinies of the civilised world. 



The task of the Royal Navy in the war would 
have been much simpler had the geography of 
the North Sea been designed by Providence to 
assist us in our struggle with Germany. We made 
the best of it, but were always sorely handicapped 
by it. The North Sea was too shallow, too well 
adapted for the promiscuous laying of mines, and 
too wide at its northern outlet for a really close 
blockade. Had the British Isles been slewed round 
twenty degrees further towards Norway, so that 
the outlet to the north was as narrow as that to 
the English Channel — and had there been a harbour 
big enough for the Grand Fleet between the Thames 



78 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

and the Firth of Forth — then our main bases could 
have been placed nearer to Germany and our 
striking power enormously increased. We could 
then have placed an absolute veto upon the raid- 
ing dashes which the Germans now and then 
made upon the eastern English seaboard. As 
the position in fact existed we could not place any 
of our first line ships further south than the Firth 
of Forth — and could place even there only our 
fastest vessels — without removing them too far 
from the Grand Fleet's main concentration at 
Seapa Flow in the Orkneys. Invergorden in the 
Cromarty Firth was used as a rest and replenishing 
station. The German raids — what Admiral Jel- 
licoo called their tactics of ''tip and run" — were 
exasperating, but they could not be allowed to 
interfere with the naval dispositions upon which 
the whole safety of the Empire depended. We 
had to depend on the speed of our battle cruisers 
in the Firth of Forth to give us opportunity to 
intercept and punish the enemy. The German 
battle cruisers which fired upon Scarborough, 
Whitby, and the Hartlepools were nearly caught. 
— a few minutes more of valuable time and a little 
less of sea haze would have meant their destruc- 
tion. A second raid was anticipated and the 
resulting Dogger Bank action taught the enemy 
that the Navy had a long arm and long sight. 
For a year he digested the lesson, and did not try 
his luck again until April, 1916, when he dashed 
forth and raided Lowestoft on the Norfolk coast. 
The story of this raid is interesting. The Grand 
Fleet had been out a day or two before upon 
what it called a "stunt," a parade in force of the 
Jutland coast and the entrance to the Skaggerak. 



THE GREAT VICTORY 79 

It had hunted for the Germans and found them 
not, and returning to the far north re-coaled the 
ships. The Germans, with a cleverness which 
does them credit, launched their Lowestoft raid 
immediately after the "stunt" and before the 
battle cruisers, re-coaling, could be ready to dash 
forth. Even as it was they did not cut much time 
to waste. It was a dash across, a few shots, and 
a dash back. 

Then was made a redisposition of the British 
Squadrons, not in the least designed to protect 
the east coast of England — though the enemy 
was led to believe so — but so to strengthen Beatty's 
Battle Gruiser Squadrons that the enemy's High 
Seas Fleet, when met, could be fought and held 
until Jellicoe with his battle squadrons could 
arrive and destroy it. The re-disposition con- 
sisted of two distinct movements. First: the 
pre- Dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers 
which had been stationed in the Forth were sent 
to the Thames. Second : Admiral Evan-Thomas's 
fifth battle squadron of five Queen Elizabeth 
battleships (built since the war began) — of twenty- 
five knots speed and each carrying eight 15-inch 
guns — Queen Elizabeth, Barham, Valiant, War- 
spite, and Malaya — were sent from Scapa to the 
Firth of Forth to reinforce Beatty and to give 
him a support which would enable him and Evan- 
Thomas to fight a delaying action against any 
force which the Germans could put to sea. Three 
of the Invincible type of battle cruisers were moved 
from the Forth to Scapa to act as Jellicoe's advance 
guard, and to enable contact to be quickly made 
between Beatty and Jellicoe. But for this change 
in the Grand Fleet's dispositions, which enabled 



80 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the four splendid battleships — Barham, Valiant, 
Warspite and Malaya (the Queen Elizabeth was in 
dock) — to engage the whole High Seas Fleet on 
the afternoon of May 31st, 1916, while Beatty 
headed off the German battle cruisers and opened 
the way for Jellicoe's enveloping movement, the 
Battle of Jutland could never have been fought. 



CHAPTER IV 

WITH THE GRAND FLEET: A NORTH SEA "STUNT" 
"So young and so untender!" — King Lear 

For more than eighteen months the Grand Fleet 
had been at war. It was the centre of the great 
web of blockading patrols, mine-sweeping flotillas, 
submarine hunters, and troop-transport convoys, 
and yet as a Fleet it had never seen the enemy nor 
fired a shot except in practice. The fast battle 
cruisers, stationed nearest to the enemy in the 
Firth of Forth had grabbed all the sport that was 
going in the Bight of Heligoland, or in the Dogger 
Bank action. But though several of the vessels 
belonging to the Grand Flf:ct had picked up some 
share in the fighting — at the Falkland Islands 
and in the Dardanelles— Jellicoe with his splendid 
squadrons still waited patiently for the Day. 
The perils from submarines had been mastered, 
and those from mines, cast into the seas by a reck- 
less enemy, had been made of little account by 
continuous sweeping. The early eagerness of offi- 
cers and men had given place to a sedate patience. 
At short intervals the vast Fleet would issue 
forth and, attended by its screen of destroyers and 
light cruisers, would make a stately parade of 
the North Sea. All were prepared for battle when 
it came, but as the weeks passed into months and 

81 



82 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the months into years, the parades became practice 
"stunts," stripped of all expectation of encounter- 
ing the enemy and devoid of the smallest excite- 
ment. The Navy knows little of excitement or of 
thrills — it has too much to think about and to 
do. At Action Stations in a great ship, not one 
man in ten ever sees anything but the job im- 
mediately before him. The enemy, if enemy there 
be in sight from the spotting tops, is hidden from 
nine-tenths of the officers and crew by steel walls. 
So, if even a battle be devoid of thrills — except 
those painfully vamped up upon paper after the 
event — a "stunt," without expectation of battle, 
becomes the most placid of sea exercises. I will 
describe such a "stunt" as faithfully as may be, 
adding thereto a little imaginary incident which 
will, I hope, gratify the reader, even though he 
may be assured in advance that I invented it for 
his entertainment. 



It was the beginning of the afternoon watch, 
and the vast harbour of Scapa Flow was very 
still and sunny and silent. The hands were sitting 
about smoking, or "caulking" after their dinner, 
and the noisome "both watches" call was still 
some fifteen minutes away. But though every- 
thing appeared to be perfectly normal and sedate, 
an observant Officer or the Watch, looking through 
the haze within which the Fleet flagship lay almost 
invisible against the dark hills, could see a little 
wisp of colour float to her yards and remain. 
Forthwith up to the yards of every vessel in harbour 
ran an exactly similar hoist, and as it was dipped 
on the flagship it disappeared from sight upon all. 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 83 

It was the signal to prepare for sea, and now mark 
exactly how such a signal — seemingly so momen- 
tous to a civilian — is received by the Navy at war. 
If the Officer of the Watch upon a ship knows 
his signals he will put his glass back under his 
arm and think, "Good, I've got off two days' 
harbour watch keeping at least; my first and 
middle, too." The signal hands on the bridge 
look at the calm sea, which will for once not drench 
them and skin their hands on the halliards, and 
gratefully regard the windless sky under which 
hoists will slide obediently up the mast and not 
tug savagely like a pair of dray horses. The signal 
bos'n turns purple with fierce resentment which 
he does not really feel, for he will be up all day 
and half the night beside the Officer of the Watch 
on the bridge running the manoeuvring signals, 
and he loves to feel indispensable. There is no 
excitement on the mess decks, only a smile since 
sea means a period of peace of mind when parades 
and polishings are suspended, and one keeps three 
watches or sleeps in a turret all night and half 
the day. Besides there is deep down in the minds 
of all the hope that, in spite of a hundred duds 
and wash-outs and disappointments, this trip 
may just possibly lead to that glorious scrap that 
all have been longing for, and have come to regard 
as about as imminent as the Day of Judgment. 
The gunnery staff look important and the "garage 
men" — armourers and electricians, commonly 
called L.T.O.s, in unspeakable overalls carry- 
ing spanners and circuit- testing lamps — float 
round the turrets looking for little faults and 
flies in the amber. The bad sailors shiver, though 
there is hope even for them in the silence and 



84 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

calmness of the sky. There is no obvious bustle 
of preparation, for the best of reasons: there 
is nothing to do except to close sea doors and 
batten down; the Fleet is Already Prepared. 
Let the reader please brush from his mind any 
idea of excitement, any idea of unusualness, any 
idea of bustle; none of these things exist when 
the Grand Fleet puts to sea. The signal which 
ran up to the yards of the flagship and was repeated 
by all the vessels in the Fleet read: "Prepare 
to leave harbour," and simply meant that the 
Fleet was going out, probably that night, and 
that no officer could leave his ship to go and dine 
with his friends in some other ship's wardroom. 

By and by up goes another little hoist, also 
universally acknowledged; this makes the stokers 
and the engine room artificers, and the purple- 
ringed, harassed-looking engineer officers jump 
lively down below so as to cut the time notice 
for full steam down by half and be ready to 
advance the required speed by three knots or so. 

The sun dips and evening comes on; a glorious 
evening such as one only gets fairly far north in 
the spring, and a signal comes again, this time: 
"Raise steam for — knots and report." Now 
one sees smoke pouring forth continuously from 
the coal-driven ships, and every now and then 
a great gust of cold oil vapour from the aristo- 
cratic new battleships whose fires are fed with 
oil only. 

Dinner in the wardroom starts in a blaze of 
light and a buzz of talking, and the band plays 
cheerfully on the half-deck outside. The King's 
health is drunk and the band settles down to an 
hour of ragtime and waltzes, the older men sip 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 85 

their port, and the younger ones drift out to where 
the gun room is already dancing lustily. Our 
wonderful Navy dances beautifully, and loves 
every evening after dinner to execute the most 
difficult of music-hall steps in the midst of a wild 
Corybantic orgie. In the choosing of partners 
age and rank count for nothing. The wardroom 
and gun room after dinner are members of one 
happy family. 

Then suddenly the scene is transformed. In 
the doorway of the anteroom and dining-room 
appears framed the tall form of the Owner, who 
in a dozen words tells that the Huns are out. They 
are in full force strolling merrily along a westerly 
course far away to the south. Already the battle- 
cruisers from the Forth are seeking touch with the 
enemy, and the light stuff and the advance de- 
stroyers, the screen of the Grand Fleet, have 
already flown from Scapa to make contact with 
the battle cruisers. Our armoured cruisers have 
moved out in advance and the Grand Fleet itself 
is about to go. 

As the wardroom gathers round the Owner, the 
band packs up hastily and vanishes down the 
big hatch into the barracks or Marines' mess to 
stow its instruments and put on warm clothing. 
Those snotties who have the first watch scatter, 
and the remainder gather in the gun room to turn 
over the chances on the morrow which seems to 
their eager souls more mist-shrouded and prom- 
ising than have most morrows during the long 
months of waiting. 



Let us now shift the scene to the compass plat- 



86 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

form or Monkey's Island of one of the great new 
oil-fired battleships of the Fifth Battle Squadron, 

one of the five ships known as Queen Elizabeths 
— all added to the Navy since the war began and 
all members of the most powerful ami fastest 
squadron of battleships upon the seas of the 
world. They have a speed of twenty-five knots, 
carry eight 15-ineh guns in four turrets arranged 
on the middle line, and have upon each side a 
battery of six C-inch guns in casemates for dealing 
faithfully and expeditiously with enemy destroyers 
who may seek to rush in with the torpedo. As 
our ship passes out into the night, the port and 
starboard 0-inch batteries are fully manned and 
Loaded, and up on the compass platform, in control 
of these batteries, are two young officers — a 
subaltern of Marines and a naval sub-lieutenant — 
to each of whom is allotted one of the batteries. 
One has charge of the port side, the other of the 
Starboard. I have called the Navy a young 
man's service, and here we see a practical example; 
for beneath us is the last word in super-battleships 
dependent for protection against sudden torpedo 
attack upon the bright eyes and cool trained brains 
of two youngsters counting not more than forty 
years between them. I will resume my descrip- 
tion and put it in the mouth of one of these youth- 
ful control officers — the Marine subaltern who a 
year before had been a boy at school: 

''Going to the gun room I warn the Sub, my 
trusted friend and fellow control officer on the 
starboard side, and depart to my cabin, where 
I dress as for a motor run on a cold day. I have 
a great Canadian fur cap and gorgeous gloves 
which defeat the damp and cold even of the 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 87 

North Sea. As I stand on the quarter deck for 
a moment's glance at the sunset, which I cannot 
hope to describe, there COmeS a sound, a sort of 
hollow metallic clap and a flicker of flame. They 
are testing electric circuits in the 6-inch battery, 
and No. 5 gun port has fired a tube-. These 
sounds r< cur at short intervals from both sides 
for a couple of minutes. Then the gun layers 
arc satisfied and stop. I go along the upper 
deck above the battery which is in casemates 
between decks and reach the pagoda, and then 
pass up, up, through a little steel door, above the 
signal bridge arid the searchlights to the airy, 
roomy Monkey's Island with the foremast in the 
middle of the floor, holding the spotting top — 
usually known as the topping spot, an inversion 
which ironically describes its exposed position 
in action — poised above; our heads. There is a 
little charthouse forward of the mast on its raised 
dais of the compass platform proper, where the 
High Priest busies himself between his two altars, 
the old and the new. 



"Looking ahead it is already dark. The sea 
is still and the ships are dim black masses. We 
have already weighed — the Cable Officer's call 
went as I passed along the upper deck — and are 
gliding to our station in the Squadron, all of 
which are moving away past those ships which 
have not yet begun to go out. Gradually we leave 
the rest of the Grand Fleet behind, for our great 
speed gives us the place of honour, and so pass 
outside and breast the swell of the open sea. 

"We find that the wind has risen outside the 



88 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

harbour, but there has not yet been time for a 
serious swell to get up. The water heaves slowly, 
breaking into a sharp clap which sets our attendant 
destroyers dancing like corks, but of which we 
take no notice whatever. This is one way in which 
the big ships score, though they miss the full 
joy of life and the passion for war which can be 
felt only in a destroyer flotilla. Our destroyer 
escort has arisen apparently from nowhere and 
we all plough on together. At intervals we tack 
a few points and the manoeuvre is passed from 
ship to ship with flash lamps. Behind us, though 
we cannot see them, follows the rest of the Grand 
Fleet, in squadrons line ahead, trailing out up 
to, and beyond the horizon. 



"That night watch on my first big 'stunt* 
lives in my memory. Never before had I been 
by myself in control of a battery of six 6-inch guns 
for use against light fast enemy craft, which might 
try the forlorn hazard of a dash to within easy 
torpedo range of about 500 yards. Torpedoes are 
useless against rapidly moving ships unless fired 
quite close up. This form of attack has been 
very rare, and has always failed, but it remains 
an ever-present possibility. Even in clear weather 
with the searchlights on — which are connected 
up to me and move with me — one cannot see for 
more than a mile at night, and a destroyer 
could rush in at full speed upon a zig-zag track 
to within point blank range in about a minute. 
Direct-aimed fire would fail at such a rapidly 
moving mark. One has to put up a curtain of 
fire, fast and furious for the charging vessel to 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 89 

run into. But there is no time to lose, no time 
at all. 

1 ' There was a bright moon upon that first night, 
so everything was less unpleasant and nerve-rack- 
ing than it might have been. Somehow in the 
Navy one seems to shed all feelings of nervous- 
ness. Perhaps this is the result of splendid health, 
the tonic sea air, and the atmosphere of serene 
competent resourcefulness which pervades the 
whole Service. We are all trained to think only 
of the job on hand and never of ourselves. 

"From the height of the compass platform there 
is no appearance of freeboard. The ship's deck 
seems to lie flush with the water, and one sees 
it as a light-coloured shaped plank — such as one 
cut out of wood when a child and fitted with a 
toy mast. The outline is not regularly curved 
but sliced away at the forecastle with straight 
sides running back parallel with one another. 
'A' turret is in the middle of the forecastle, which 
is very narrow; and behind it upon a higher level 
stands 'B' with its long glistening guns sticking 
out over 'AV back. From aloft the turrets 
look quite small, though each is big enough for a 
hundred men to stand comfortably on the roof. 
The slope upwards is continued by the great 
armoured conning tower behind and higher than 
*B' turret, and directly above and behind that 
again stands the compass platform. Overhead 
towers the draughty spotting top for the turret 
guns. Behind again, upon the same level as my 
platform, are the two great flat funnels spouting 
out dense clouds of oily smoke. When there is 
a following wind the spotting top is smothered 
with smoke, and the officers perched there cough 



Sid THE SILENT w ETCHERS 

and gasp ami curse, It is then worthy of its 
name, for it is in truth a ' topping spot ! ' 

"We are a very fast ship, but at this height the 
impression of speed is lost. The ship seems io 
plough in leisurely fashion through the black 
white-crested waves, now and then throwing up 
a cloud of spmy as high as my platform, to descend 
crashing upon 'A' turret, which is none too dry 
a place to sloop in. We don't, roll appreciably, 
but slide up and down with a, dignified pitch, 
exactly like the motion of that patent rocking- 
horse which T used to love in my old nursery. 

"Down below, though they arc hidden from 

me by the deck, the gunners stand ready behind 

their casemates, waiting for my signal. The guns 

are loaded and trained, the crews stand at their 

stations, shells and cordite charges are ready to 
their hands. The gun-layers are connected up 
with me and are ready to respond instantly to 
my order. 

"So the watch passes; my relief comes, and 1 go. 



"I was on watch again in the forenoon, and then 
one could see something of the Grand Fleet and 

realise its tremendous silent power. We had 
shortened speed so as not to leave the supporting- 
Squadrons too far behind and one could see them 
dearly, long lines of great, ships, stretching far 
beyond the visible horizon. Nearest to us was 
:"eo cream of the Fleet, the incomparable Second 
Squadron the four Orions and four K.G. Fives 
which with their eighty 13.5-inch guns possess 
a concentrated power far beyond anything flying 
Fritz's Hag. Upon us of the Queen Elizabeths, 



WTTB THE GRAND FLEE! 01 

and upon the Second Battle Squadron, recti the 
Mastery of th< Par away on the port 

quarter could be Been the leading ships of the 
Fir t Battle Squadron of Dreadnoughts, all ship* 
of 12-inch guns, all good enough for Fritz but 
not in the same class with the Orion:-;, the K.G. 
I ; or with us. Away to starboard came 
more Dreadnoughts, and Royal Ho- —as 

powerful as our elv< but not bo fast and odd 
ships like the seven-turreted Agincourt and the 
14-inch gunned Canada* It was a great sight, 
one to impress Fritz and to make his blood turn 
to water. 

"For he could see us as we thrashed through 
the seas. It looked no larger than a breakfast 

age, a/id J had some difficulty in ma.' 
it out even after the Officer of the Watch had 
shown it to me. But at last I saw the watching 
Zeppelin a mere speck thousands of feet up and 
perhaps fifty miles distant. Our seaplanes roared 
away, rising one after the other from our carry- 
ing-ships like huge seagulls, and Herr Zeppelin 
melted into the far-off background of clouds. Jle 
had seen us, arid that was enough to keep the 
Germans at a vary safe distance. He, or others 
like him, had seen, too, our battle cruisers which, 
sweeping far down to the south, essayed to play 
the hammer to our most massive anvil. In the 
evening, precisely at ten o'clock, the German 
Nordeich wireless sent out a volley of heavy chaff, 
assuring us that we had only dared to come out 
when satisfied that their High Seas Fleet was in 
the Baltic. It wasn't in the Baltic; at that mo- 
ment it was scuttling back to the minefields 
behind Heligoland. But what could we do? 



92 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

When surprise is no longer possible at sea, what 
can one do? It is all very exasperating, but 
somehow rather amusing. 

"We joined the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the 
south and swept the 'German Ocean' right up 
to the minefields off the Elbe and Weser, and north 
to the opening of the Skaggerak. Further we 
could not go, for any foolish attempt to 'dig out' 
Fritz might have cost us half the Grand Fleet. 
Then our 'stunt' ended, we turned and sought 
once more our northern fastnesses." 



It was during the return from this big sweep 
of the North Sea that our young Marine chanced 
upon his baptism of fire and his first Great Adven- 
ture. His chance came suddenly and unexpectedly 
— as chances usually come at sea — and I will let 
him tell of it himself in that personal vivid style 
of his with which I cannot compete. 

"The wonderful thing has happened! I have 
been in action! It was not a great battle; it 
was not what the hardiest evening newspaper 
could blaze upon its bills as a Naval Action in 
the North Sea. From first to last it endured for 
one minute and forty seconds; yet for me it was 
the Battle of the Century. For it was my own, 
my very own, my precious ewe lamb of a battle. 
It was fought by me on my compass platform 
and by my bold gunners in the 6-inch casemates 
below. All by our little selves we did the trick, 
before any horrid potentates could interfere, and 
the enemy is at the bottom of the deep blue sea — 
it is not really very deep and certainly is not blue. 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 93 

What I most love about my battle is that it was 
fought so quickly that no one — and especially 
none of those tiresome folks called superior officers 
— had any opportunity of kicking me off the stage. 
All was over, quite over, and my guns had ceased 
firing before the Owner had tumbled out of his 
sea cabin in the pagoda, and best of all before 
my gunnery chief had any chance to snatch the 
control away from me. He came charging up, 
red and panting, while the air still thudded with 
my curtain fire, and wanted to know what the 
devil I was playing at. 'I have sunk the enemy, 
sir/ I said, saluting. 'What enemy?' cried he, 
'I never saw any enemy.' 'He's gone, sir/ said 
I standing at attention. 'I hit him with three 
6-inch shells and he is very dead indeed.' 'It's 
all right/ called out the Officer of the Watch, 
laughing. 'This young Soldier here has been 
and gone and sunk one of Fritz's destroyers. 
He burst her all to pieces in a manner most em- 
phatic. I call it unkind. But he always was 
a heartless young beast.' Then the Bloke, who 
is a very decent old fellow, cooled down, said 
I was a lucky young dog, and received my official 
report. He carried it off to the Lord High Captain 
— whom the Navy people call the Owner — and 
the great man was so very kind as to speak to me 
himself. He said that I had done very well and 
that he would make a note of my prompt attention 
to duty. I don't suppose that I shall ever again 
fight so completely satisfying a naval battle, for 
I am not likely to come across another one small 
enough to keep wholly to myself. 

"I will tell you all about it. I was up on my 
platform at my watch. My battery of 6-inch guns 



94 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

was down below, all loaded with high explosive 
shell, weighing 100 lbs. each. All the gunners 
were ready for anything which might happen, 
but expecting nothing. So they had stood and 
waited during a hundred watches. It was greying 
towards dawn, but there was a good bit of haze 
and the sea was choppy. The old ship was doing 
her rocking-horse trick as usual, and also as usual 
I was feeling a bit squeamish but nothing to worry 
about. As the light increased I could see about 
2,000 yards, more or less — I am not much good 
yet at judging sea distances; they look so short. 
The Officer of the Watch was walking up and 
down on the look-out. 'Hullo/ I heard him say, 
'what's that dark patch yonder three points on 
the port bow?' This meant thirty degrees to 
the left. I looked through my glasses and so did 
he, and as I could see nothing I switched on the 
big searchlight. Then there came a call from 
the Look Out near us, the dark patch changed to 
thick smoke, and out of the haze into the blaze 
of my searchlight slid the high forepeak of a 
destroyer. I thought it was one of our escort, 
and so did the Officer of the Watch; but as we 
watched the destroyer swung round, and we could 
see the whole length of her. I can't explain how 
one can instantly distinguish enemy ships from 
one's own, and can even class them and name 
them at sight. One knows them by the lines and 
silhouette just as one knows a Ford car from a 
Rolls-Royce. The destroyer was an enemy, plain 
even to me. She had blundered into us by mistake 
and was now trying hard to get away. I don't 
know what the Officer of the Watch did — I never 
gave him a thought — my mind simply froze on 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 95 

to that beautiful battery of 6-inch guns down 
below and on to that enemy destroyer trying to 
escape. Those two things, the battery and the 
enemy, filled my whole world. 

"Within five seconds I had called the battery, 
given them a range of 2,000 yards, swung the guns 
on to the enemy and loosed three shells — the first 
shells which I had seen fired in any action. They 
all went over for I had not allowed for our height 
above the water. Then the Boche did an extraor- 
dinary thing. If he had gone on swinging round 
and dashed away, he might have reached cover 
in the haze before I could hit him. But his Officer 
of the Watch was either frightened out of his 
wits or else was a bloomin' copper-bottomed 
'ero. Instead of trying to get away, he swung 
back towards us, rang up full speed, and came 
charging in upon us so as to get home with a 
torpedo. It was either the maddest or the bravest 
thing which I shall ever see in my life. I ought 
to have been frightfully thrilled, but somehow 
I wasn't. I felt no excitement whatever; you 
see, I was thinking all the time of directing my 
guns and had no consciousness of anything else 
in the world. The moment the destroyer charged, 
zig-zagging to distract our aim, I knew exactly 
what to do with him. I instantly shortened the 
range by 400 yards, and gave my gunners rapid 
independent fire from the whole battery. The idea 
was to put up a curtain of continuous fire about 
200 yards short for him to run into, and to 
draw in the curtain as he came nearer. As 
he zig-zagged, so we followed, keeping up that 
wide deadly curtain slap in his path. There was 
no slouching about those beautiful long-service 



96 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

gun-layers of ours, and you should have seen the 
darlings pump it out. I have seen fast firing in 
practice but never anything like that. There 
was one continuous stream of shell as the six guns 
took up the order. Six-inch guns are no toys, 
and 100-lb. shells are a bit hefty to handle, yet 
no quick-firing cartridge loaders could have been 
worked faster than were my heavy beauties. Every 
ten seconds my battery spat out six great shells, 
and I steadily drew the curtain in, keeping it 
always dead in his path, but by some miracle of 
light or of manceuvring the enemy escaped destruc- 
tion for a whole long minute. On came the 
destroyer and round came our ship facing her. 
The Officer of the Watch was swinging our bows 
towards the enemy so as to lessen the mark for 
his torpedo, and I swung my guns the opposite 
way as the ship turned, keeping them always on 
the charging destroyer. Away towards the enemy 
the sea boiled as the torrent of shells hit it and 
ricochetted for miles. 

"At last the end came! It seemed to have 
been hours since I began to fire, but it couldn't 
really have been more than a minute; for even 
German destroyers will cover half a mile in that 
time. The range was down to 1,000 yards when 
he loosed a torpedo, and at that very precise 
instant a shell, ricochetting upwards, caught him 
close to the water line of his high forepeak and 
burst in his vitals. I saw instantly a great flash 
blaze up from his funnels as the high explosive 
smashed his engines, boilers and fires into scrap. 
He reared up and screamed exactly like a wounded 
horse. It sounded rather awful, though it was 
only the shriek of steam from the burst pipes; it 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 97 

made one feel how very live a thing is a ship, how 
in its splendid vitality it is, as Kipling says, more 
than the crew. He reared up and fell away to 
port, and two more of my shells hit him almost 
amidships and tore out his bottom plates like 
shredded paper. I could hear the rending crash 
of the explosions through my ear-protectors, and 
through the continuous roar of my own curtain 
fire. He rolled right over and was gone ! He 
vanished so quickly that for a moment my shells 
flew screaming over the empty sea, and then I 
stopped the gunners. My battle had lasted for 
one minute and forty seconds! 

'"But what about the torpedo?' you will ask. 
I never saw it, but the Officer of the Watch told me 
that it had passed harmlessly more than a hundred 
feet away from us. 'You sank the destroyer/ 
said the Officer of the Watch, grinning, 'but my 
masterly navigation saved the ship. So honours is 
easy, Mr. Marine. If I had had those guns of 
yours,' he went on, 'I would have sunk the beggar 
with about half that noise and half that expenditure 
of Government ammunition. I never saw such 
a wasteful performance,' said he. But he was only 
pulling my leg. All the senior officers, from the 
Owner downwards, were very nice to me and said 
that for a youngster, and a Soldier at that, I hadn't 
managed the affair at all badly. 

"I thought that the guns' crews had done fine 
and told them so; but the chief gunner — a stern 
Marine from Eastney — shook his head sadly. 
No. 3 gun had been trained five seconds late, he 
said, and was behind the others all through. He 
seemed to reckon the sinking of the destroyer as 
nothing in condonation of the shame No. 3 had 



98 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

brought upon his battery. I condoled with him, 
but he was wounded to the heart. 



"The officer of the Watch said that all the time 
the destroyer was charging she was firing small 
stuff at our platform with a Q.-F. gun on her 
forepeak. And I knew nothing about it! This is 
the simple and easy way in which one earns a 
reputation for coolness under heavy tire." 



CHAPTER V 

WITH THE GRAND FLEET: THE TERRIERS 
AND THE RATS 

"You missed a lot, Soldier," said the Sub-Lieu- 
tenant to his friend the Marine Subaltern, "through 
not being here at the beginning. Now it is alto- 
gether too comfortable for us of the big ships; 
the destroyers and patrols get all the fun while 
we hang about here in harbour or put up a stately 
and entirely innocuous parade of the North Sea. 
No doubt we are Grand in our Silent Might and 
Keep our Unsleeping Vigil and all the rest of the 
pretty tosh which one reads in the papers — but 
in reality we eat too much for the good of our 
waists and do too little work for our princely pay. 
But it was very different at the beginning. Then 
we were like a herd of wild buffaloes harassed 
day and night by super-mosquitoes. When we 
were not on watch we were saying our prayers. 
It was a devil of a time, my son." 

"I thought that you Commanded the Seas," 
observed the marine, an innocent youth who had 
lately joined. 

The Sub-Lieutenant, dark and short, with twenty 
years to his age and the salt wisdom of five naval 
generations in his rich red blood, grinned capa- 
ciously, "So the dear simple old British Public 

99 



100 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

thought. So their papers told them every day. 
We did not often get a sight of newspapers — 
there were no regular mails, as now, and none of 
the comforts of an ordered civilised life, as some ass 
wrote the other day of the Grand Fleet. What 
the deuce have we to do with an ordered civilised 
life! Fighting's our job, and that's what we 
want, not beastly comforts. While we were being 
chivied about by Fritz's submarines it was jolly 
to be told that we Commanded the Seas of the 
World. But to me it sounded a bit sarcastic at 
a time when we had not got the length of com- 
manding even the entrances to our own harbours. 
That's the cold truth. For six months we hadn't 
a submarine proof harbour in England or Scotland 
or Ireland though we looked for one pretty dili- 
gently. We wandered about, east and west and 
north, looking for some hole where the submarines 
couldn't get in without first knocking at the 
door, and where we could lie in peace for two 
days together. Wherever we went it was the same 
old programme. The Zepps would smell us out 
and Fritz would come nosing around with his 
submarines, and we had to up anchor and be off 
on our travels once more. At sea we were all 
right. We cruised always at speed, with a destroyer 
patrol out on either side, so that Fritz had no 
chance to get near enough to try a shot with the 
torpedo. A fast moving ship can't be hit except 
broadside on and within a range of about 400 
yards; and as we always moved twice as fast 
as a submerged U boat he never could get within 
sure range. He tried once or twice till the de- 
stroyers and light cruisers began to get him with 
the ram and the gun. Fritz must have had a 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 101 

good many thrilling minutes when he was fiddling 
with his rudder, his diving planes and his torpedo 
discharge gear and saw a destroyer foaming down 
upon him at over thirty knots. Fritz died a clean 
death in those days. I would fifty times sooner 
go under to the ram or the gun than be caught 
like a rat in some of the dainty traps we've been 
setting for a year past. We are top dog now, but 
I blush to think of those first few months. It 
was a most humiliating spectacle. Fancy fifty 
million pounds worth of the greatest fighting ships 
in the world scuttling about in fear of a dozen 
or two of footy little submarines any one of which 
we could have run up on the main derrick as 
easily as a picket boat. If I, a mere snotty in 
the old Olympus, felt sore in my bones what must 
the Owners and the Admirals have felt? Answer 
me that, Pongo?" 

"It's all right now, I suppose," said the Pongo. 

"Safe and dull," replied he, "powerful dull. 
No chance of a battle, and no feeling that any day 
a mouldy in one's ribs is more likely than not. 
If Fritz had had as much skill as he had pluck he 
would have blown up half the Grand Fleet. Why 
he didn't I can't imagine, except that it takes a 
hundred years to make a sailor. Our submarine 
officers, with such a target, would have downed a 
battleship a week easy." 

"Fritz got the three Cressys." 

"He simply couldn't help," sniffed the Sub- 
Lieutenant. "They asked for trouble; one after 
the other. Fritz struck a soft patch that morning 
which he is never likely to find again." 

"Had the harbours no booms?" 

"Never a one. We had built the ships all right, 



102 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

but we had forgotten the harbours. There wasn't 

one, I say, in the east or north or west which Fritz 
could not enter whenever he chose to take the 
risk. He could come in submerged, a hundred 
feet down, diving under the line of patrols, but 

luckily for us he couldn't do much after he arrived 
except keep us busy. For as sure as ever he stuck 
up a periscope to take a sight we were on to him 
within five seconds with the small stuff, and then 
there was a chase which did one's heart good. 
I've seen a dozen, all much alike, though one had 
a queer ending which I will tell you. It explains 
a lot, too. It shows exactly why Fritz fails when 
he has to depend upon individual nerve and 
judgment. He is deadly in a crowd, but pretty 
feeble when left to himself. We used to think 
that the Germans were a stolid race but they 
aren't. They have nerves like red-hot wires. I 
have seen a crew come up out of a captured sub- 
marine, trembling and shivering and crying. I 
suppose that frightfulness gets over them like 
drink or drugs or assorted debauchery. Now for 
my story. One evening towards sunset in the 
first winter — which means six bells (about three 
o'clock in the afternoon) up here — a German 
submarine crept into this very harbour and the 
first we knew of it was a bit alarming. The com- 
mander was a good man, and if he had only kept 
his head, after working his way in submerged, he 
might have got one, if not two, big ships. But 
instead of creeping up close to the battleships, 
where they lay anchored near the shore, he stuck 
up a periscope a 1,000 yards away and blazed a 
torpedo into the brown of them. It was a forlorn, 
silly shot. They were end on to him, and the 



WITH THE fiRAND FLEET 103 

torpedo just ran between two of them and smashed 
up against the steep shore behind. The traek of 
it on the sea was wide and white as a high road, 
and half a dozen destroyers were on to that sub- 
marine even before the shot had exploded against 
the rocks. Fritz got down safely — he was clever, 
but too darned nervous for under-water work — 
and then began a hunt which was exactly like one 
has seen in a barn when terriers are after rats. 
The destroyers and motor patrols were every- 
where, and above them flew the seaplanes with 
observers who could peer down through a hundred 
feet of water. In a shallow harbour Fritz could 
have sunk to the bottom and lain there till after 
dark, but we have 200 fathoms here with a very 
steep shore and there was no bottom for him. A 
submarine can't stand the water pressure of more 
than 200 feet at the outside. He didn't dare to 
fill his tanks and sink, and could only keep down 
in diving trim so long as he kept moving with his 
electric motors and held himself submerged with 
his horizontal planes. Had the motors stopped, 
the submarine would have come up, for in diving 
trim it was slightly lighter than the water dis- 
placed. All we had to do was to keep on hunting 
till his electric batteries had run down, and then 
he would be obliged to come up. Do you twig, 
Pongo? " 

"But he could have sunk to the bottom if he 
had chosen?" 

"Oh, yes. But then he could never have risen 
again. To have filled his tanks would have meant 
almost instant death. At 200 fathoms his plates 
would have crumpled like paper." 

"Still I think that I should have done it." 



104 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

"So should I. But Fritz didn't. He roamed 
about the harbour, blind, keeping as deep down 
as he could safely go. Above him scoured the 
patrol boats and destroyers, and above them 
again flew the seaplanes. Now and then the air 
observers would get a sight of him and once or 
twice they dropped bombs, but this was soon 
stopped as the risk to our own boats was too 
great. Regarded as artillery practice bomb drop- 
ping from aeroplanes is simply rotten. One can't 
possibly aim from a thing moving at fifty miles 
an hour. If one may believe the look outs of 
the destroyers the whole harbour crawled with 
periscopes, but they were really bully beef cans 
and other rubbish chucked over from the warships. 
When last seen, or believed to be seen, Fritz was 
blundering towards the line of battleships lying 
under the deep gloom of the shore, and then he 
vanished altogether. Night came on, the very 
long Northern night in winter, and it seemed extra 
specially long to us in the big ships. Searchlights 
were going all through the dark hours, the water 
gleamed, all the floating rubbish which accumu- 
lates so fast in harbour stood out dead black 
against the silvery surface, and the Officers of 
the Watch detected more periscopes than Fritz 
had in his whole service. The hunt went on with- 
out ceasing for, at any moment, Fritz's batteries 
might peter out, and he come up. It was a bit 
squirmy to feel that here ccoped up in a narrow 
deep sea lock were over a hundred King's ships, 
and that somewhere below us was a desperate 
German submarine which couldn't possibly escape, 
but which might blow some of us to blazes any 
minute." 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 105 

"Did any of you go to sleep?" asked the Pongo 
foolishly. 

The Sub-Lieutenant stared. "When it wasn't 
my watch I turned in as usual," he replied. "Why 
not? 

"In the morning there was no sign of Fritz, so 
we concluded that he had either sunk himself to 
the bottom or had somehow managed to get out 
of the harbour. In either case we should not see 
him more. So we just forgot him as we had for- 
gotten others who had been chased and had escaped. 
But he turned up again after all. For twenty- 
four hours nothing much happened except the 
regular routine, though after the scare we were 
all very wide awake for more U boats, and then 
we had orders to proceed to sea. I was senior 
snotty of the Olympus, and I was on the after 
look-out platform as the ship cast loose from her 
moorings and moved away, to take her place in 
the line. As we got going there was a curious 
grating noise all along the bottom just as if we 
had been lightly aground; everyone was puzzled 
to account for it as there were heaps of water under 
us. The grating went on till we were clear of our 
berth, and then in the midst of the wide foaming 
wake rolled up the long thin hull of a submarine. 
A destroyer dashed up, and the forward gun was 
in the act of firing when a loud voice from her 
bridge called on the gunners to stop. 'Don't 
fire on a coffin/ roared her commander. It was 
the German submarine, which after some thirty 
hours under water had become a dead hulk. All 
the air had long since been used up and the crew 
were lying at their posts — cold meat, poor devils. 
A beastly way to die." 



106 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

''Beastly," murmured the Marine. "War is a 
foul game." 

"Still," went on the Sub-Lieutenant, cheerfully, 
"a dead Fritz is always much more wholesome 
than a live one, and here were a score of him safely 
dead." 

"But what had happened to the submarine?" 
asked the Marine, not being a sailor. 

"Don't you see?" explained the Sub-Lieutenant, 
who had held his story to be artistically finished, 
"What a Pongo it is! Fritz had wandered about 
blind, deep down under water, until his batteries 
had given out. Then the submarine rose, fouled 
our bottom by the merest accident, and stuck 
there jammed against our bilge keels till the 
movement of the ship had thrown it clear. It 
swung to the tide with us. The chances against 
the submarine rising under one of the battleships 
were thousands to one, but chances like that have 
a way of coming off at sea. Nothing at sea ever 
causes surprise, my son." 

The Sub-Lieutenant spoke with the assurance 
of a grey-haired Admiral; he was barely twenty 
years old, but he was wise with the profound salt 
wisdom of the sea and will never get any older or 
less wise though he lives to be ninety. 



Though our friend the young Lieutenant of 
Marines was no sailor he was a scholar, trained in 
the class-rooms and playing fields, of a great 
English school. He was profoundly impressed, 
as all outsiders must be, by the engrained efficiency 
of the seafolk among whom he now dwelt, their 
easy mastery of the technicalities of sea craft, and 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 107 

their almost childish ignorance of everything that 
lay outside it. It was borne in upon him that 
they were a race apart, bred to their special work 
as terriers and racehorses arc bred, the perfect prod- 
uct of numberless generations of sea fighters. It 
was borne in upon him, too, that no nation coming 
late to the sea, like the Germans, could, though 
taking an infinity of thought, possibly stand up 
against us. Sea power does not consist of ships 
but of men. For a real Navy does not so much 
design and build ships as secrete them. They 
are the expression in machinery of its brains and 
Soul. He arrived at this conclusion after much 
patient thought and then diffidently laid it before 
his experienced friend. The Sub-Lieutenant ac- 
cepted the theory at once as beyond argument. 

"That's the whole secret, my son, the secret of 
the Navy. Fritz can't design ships; he can 
only copy ours, and then he can't make much of 
his copies. Take his submarine work. He has 
any amount of pluck, though he is a dirty swine; 
he doesn't fail for want of pluck but because he 
hasn't the right kind of nerve. That is where 
Fritz fails and where our boys succeed, because 
they were bred to the sea and their fathers before 
them, and their fathers before that. Submarining 
as a sport is exactly like stalking elephants on 
foot in long grass. One has to wriggle on one's 
belly till one gets within close range, and then 
make sure of a kill in one shot. There's no time 
for a second if one misses. Fritz will get fairly 
close up, sometimes — or did before we had taken 
his measure — but not that close enough to make 
dead sure of a hit. He is too much afraid of being 
seen when he pops his periscope above water. So 



108 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

he comes down between two stools. He is too 
far off for a certain hit and not far enough to escape 
being seen. That story I told you the other day 
was an exact illustration. The moment he pops 
up the destroyers swoop down upon him, he 
flinches, looses off a mouldy, somehow, anyhow, 
and then gets down. That sort of thing is no 
bally use; one doesn't sink battleships that fool 
way. Our men first make sure of their hit at the 
closest range, and then think about getting down 
— or don't get down. They do their work with- 
out worrying about being sunk themselves the 
instant after. That's just the difference between 
us and the Germans, between terriers and rats. 
It's no good taking partial risks in submarine work; 
one must go the whole hog or leave it alone. 

u Risks are queer things/ 1 went on the Sub- 
Lieutenant, reflectively. "The bigger they are, the 
less one gets hurt. Just look at the seaplanes. 
One would think that the ordinary dangers of 
flight were bad enough — the failure of a stay, the 
misfiring of an engine, a bad gusty wind — and so 
we thought before the war. It looked the forlornest 
of hopes to rush upon an enemy plane, shoot him 
down at the shortest of range, or ram him if one 
couldn't get a kill any other way. It seemed that 
if two planes stood up to one another, both must 
certainly be lost. And so they would. Yet time 
and again our Flight officers have charged the 
German planes, seen them run away or drop into 
the sea, and come off themselves with no more 
damage than a hole or two through the wings. 
It's just nerve, nerve and breeding. When we 
dash in upon Fritz with submarine or seaplanes, 
taking no count of the risks, but seeking only to 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 109 

kill, he almost always either blunders or runs. 
It isn't that he lacks pluck — don't believe that 
silly libel; Fritz is as brave as men are made — 
but he hasn't the sporting nerve. He will take 
risks in the mass, but he doesn't like them single; 
we do. He doesn't love big game shooting, on 
foot, alone; we do. He does his best; he obeys 
orders up to any limit; he will fight and die 
without shrinking. But he is not a natural 
fighting man, and he is always thinking of dying. 
We love fighting, love it so much that we don't give 
a thought to the dying part. We just look upon 
the risk as that which gives spice to the game." 

"I believe," said the Marine, thoughtfully, 
"that you have exactly described the difference 
between the races. With us fighting and dying 
are parts of one great glorious game; with Fritz 
they are the most solemn of business. We laugh 
all the time and sing music-hall songs; Fritz 
never smiles and sings the Wacht am Rhein. I 
am beginning to realize that our irrepressible 
levity is a mighty potent force, mightier by far 
than Fritz's solemnity. The true English spirit 
is to be seen at its best and brightest in the Navy, 
and the Navy is always ready for the wildest of 
schoolboy rags. If I had not come to sea I might 
myself have become a solemn blighter like Fritz." 



In the wardroom that evening the Marine re- 
peated the Sub-Lieutenant's story and was assured 
that it was true. The Navy will pull a Soldier's 
leg with a joyous disregard for veracity, but there 
is a crudity about its invention which soon ceases 
to deceive. They can invent nothing which 



110 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

approaches in wonder the marvels which happen 
every day. 

The talk then fell upon the ever-engrossing topic 
of submarine catching, and experiences flowed forth 
in a stream which filled the Marine with astonish- 
ment and admiration. He had never served an 
apprenticeship in a submarine catcher and the sea 
business in small sporting craft was altogether 
new to him. 

"It is a pity," at last said a regular Navy Lieu- 
tenant, "that submarines are no good against 
other submarines. That is a weakness which we 
must seek to overcome if, as seems likely in the 
future, navies contain more under-water boats 
than any other craft." 

"That is not quite true," spoke up a grizzled 
Royal Naval Reserve man, and told a story of 
submarine v. submarine which I am not permitted 
to repeat. 

"Yes," said the Commander of the Utopia 
(The Pongo's ship). "Very clever and very in- 
genious. But did you ever hear how the Navy, 
not the merchant service this time, caught a 

submarine off the Lightship. That was 

finesse, if you please, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve." 

Our young marine hugged himself. He had set 
the Navy talking, and when the Navy talks there 
come forth things which make glad the ears. 

"You know the Lightship," went on 

the Commander, a sea potentate of thirty-five, 
with a passion for music-hall songs which he sang 
most divinely. "She is anchored on a shoal which 
lies off the entrance to one of the busiest of our 
English harbours. Though her big lantern is 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET m 

not lighted in war time the ship remains as a day 
mark, and two men are always on board of her. 
She is anchored on the top of a sandbank where at 
low water there are not more than twelve feet, 
though close by the channels deepen to thirty 
feet. A little while ago the men in the Lightship 
were interested to observe a German submarine 
approach at high water — of course submerged — 
and to take up a position about a hundred yards 
distant where the low-water soundings were 
twenty-two feet. There she remained on the 
bottom from tide to tide, watching through her 
periscope all the shipping which passed in and 
out of the harbour. Her draught in cruising 
trim was about fourteen feet, so that at high 
water she was completely submerged except for the 
periscope and at low water the top of her conning 
tower showed above the surface. At high tide 
she slipped away with the results of her observa- 
tions. The incident was reported at once to the 
naval authorities and the lightship men were 
instructed to report again at once if the sub- 
marine's performance was repeated. A couple of 
days later, under the same conditions, Fritz in his 
submarine came back and the whole programme 
of watchfully waiting was gone through again. He 
evidently knew the soundings to a hair and lay 
where no destroyer could quickly get at him 
through the difficult winding channels amid the 
sandbanks except when the tide was nearly at the 
full. Even at dead low water he could, if sur- 
prised, rise and float and rapidly make off to where 
there was depth enough to dive. He couldn't 
be rushed, and there were three or four avenues 
of escape. Fritz had discovered a safe post of 



112 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

observation and Boomed determined to make the 
most of it. But, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve, even 
the poor effete old Navy has brains and occasionally 

uses them. The night after the Beoond visit an 
Admiralty tug came along, hauled up the light- 
ship's anchors, and shifted her exactly one hundred 
yards oast-north-oast. You will note that the Ger- 
man submarine's chosen spot was exactly one hun- 
dred yards west-south-west of the lightship's old 
position. The change was so slight that it might be 
expected to escape notice. And so it did. Three 
days passed, and then at high tide the V boat came 
cheerfully along upon its mission and lay off the 
lightship exactly as before. The only difference was 
that now she was upon the top of the shoal with 
barely twelve feet under her at low water instead 
of twenty-two feet. The observers in the lightship 
winked at one another, for they had talked with the 
officer of the Admiralty tug and were wise to the 
game. The tide fell, the submarine lay peacefully 
on the bottom, and Fritz, intent to watch the move- 
ments of ships in and out of the harbour, did not 
notice that the water was steadily falling away from 
his sides and leaving his whole conning tower and 
deck exposed. Far away a destroyer was watching, 
and at the correct moment, when the water around 
the U boat was too shallow to tloat her even in 
the lightest trim, she slipped up as near as she 
could approach, trained a -1-inch gun upon Fritz 
and sent in an armed boat's crew to wish him good- 
day. Poor old Fritz knew nothing of his visitors 
until they were hammering violently upon his fore 
hatch and calling upon him to come out and sur- 
render. He was a very sick man and did not 
understand at all how he had been caught until 



WITH THE GRAND FLEET 113 

the whole manoeuvre had been kindly explained 
to him by the lieutenant-Commander of the 
destroyer, from whom I also received the story. 
'You sen, Fritz, old son,' observed the Lieutenant- 
Commander, 'Admiralty charts are jolly things 
and you know all about them, but you should 
sometimes check them with the lead. Things 
change, Fritz; light-ships can be moved. Come 
and have a drink, old friend, you look as if you 
needed something stiff.' Fritz gulped down a 
tall whisky and soda, gasped, and gurgled out, 
'That was damned clever and I was a damned fool. 
For God's sake don't tell them in Germany how I 
was caught.' 'Not for worlds, old man,' replied 
the Lieutenant-Commander. 'We will say that 
you were nabbed while trying to ditch a hospital 
ship. There is glory for you.' " 

"A very nice story," observed the Royal Naval 
Reserve man drily. 

"I believed your yarn," said the Commander 
reproachfully, "and mine is every bit as true as 
yours. But no matter. Call up the band and 
let us get to real business." 

Two minutes later the ante-room had emptied, 
and these astonishing naval children were out on 
the half-deck dancing wildly but magnificently. 
Commanders and Lieutenants were mixed up with 
Subs., clerks and snotties from the gun room. 
Rank disappeared and nothing counted but the 
execution of the most complicated Russian 
measures. It was a strange scene which perhaps 
helps to reveal that combination of professional 
efficiency and childish irresponsibility which makes 
the Naval Service unlike any other community of 
men and boys in the world. 



CHAPTER VI 

the mediterranean: a failure and its 
consequences 

War is made up of successes and failures. We 
English do not forget our successes, but we have 
an incorrigible habit of wiping from our minds 
the recollection of our failures. Which is a vey 
bad habit, for as every man realises, during his 
half-blind stumbles through life, failure is a most 
necessary schoolmistress. Yet, though civilians 
seem able to bring themselves to forget that in 
war we ever fail of success, soldiers and sailors do 
not forget, and are always seeking to make of their 
admitted mistakes, stepping stones upon which 
they may rise to ultimate victory. On land one 
may retrieve errors more readily than at sea, for 
movements are much slower and evil results 
declare themselves less rapidly. I am now com- 
pelled to write of a failure at sea very early in the 
war, which was not retrieved, and which had a 
trail of most disastrous consequence; and I hope 
to do it without imputing blame to anyone, no 
blame, that is, except for the lack of imaginative 
vision, which is one of our most conspicuous defects 
as a race. 

All of those who read me know that the blows 
which we have struck in France ami Flanders, ever 
since the crowning victory of the Marne— that 

lit 



THE MEDITERRANEAN 115 

still unexplained miracle which eared w< stern 

civilisation from ruin — are the direct consequence 
of the success in the North Sea of our mobilised 
fleets in August, 1014. But few know- or if 
they do, have pushed the knowledge testily from 
their minds — of a failure in the Mediterranean, 
also in August of 1014, a failure which at the 
time may have seemed of little account, yet out 
of which grew in inevitable melancholy sequence, 
a tragical train of troubles. Though we may 
choose to forget, Fate has a memory most damnably 
long. Nothing would be more unfair than to lay 
at the door of the Navy the blame for all the 
consequences of a failure which, it has been 
officially held, the officers on the spot did their 
utmost to avert. Men are only human after all, 
and the sea is a vary big place. We need not 
censure anyone. Still, we should be most foolish 
and blind to the lessons of war if we did not now 
and then turn aside from the smug contemplation 
of our strategical and tactical victories, and seek 
in a humble spirit to gather instruction from a 
grievous pondering over the con sequences of our 
defeats. And of this particular defeat of which 
I write the results have been gloomy beyond 
description — the sword in the balance which threw 
Turkey and Bulgaria into alliance with our enemies, 
and all the blood and the tears with which the 
soil of the Near East has been soaked. 

When war broke out all our modern battleships 
were in the North Sea, but of our nine fast battle 
cruisers four were away. The Australia was at 
the other side of the world, and the Inflexible 
(flag), Indomitable and Indefatigable were in the 
Mediterranean. We also had four armoured 



116 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

cruisers, and four light cruisers in the Mediterranean 
— the armoured Defence, Duke of Edinburgh, War- 
rior and Black Prince, the light fast Gloucester 
of the new "Town" class, a sister of the Glasgow 
and the Bristol, and three other similar cruisers. 
The Germans had in the Mediterranean the battle 
cruiser Goeben, as fast, though not so powerfully 
gunned, as the three Inflexibles of ours. She 
carried ten 11-inch guns, while our battle cruisers 
were each armed with eight 12-inch guns. The 
Goeben had as her consort the light cruiser Brcslau, 
one of the German Town class built in 1912, a 
newer and faster edition of the earlier Town 
cruisers which were under von Spee in the Pacific 
and Atlantic. She could have put up a good fight 
though probably an unsuccessful one against the 
Gloucester, but was no match for the Defence, 
the Warrior, the Black Prince or Duke of Edin- 
burgh. Our squadrons in the Mediterranean were, 
therefore, in fighting value fully three times as 
powerful as the German vessels. Our job was to 
catch them and to destroy them, but unfortunately 
we did not succeed in bringing them to action. 
The story of their evasion of us, and of what their 
escape involved is, to my mind, one of the most 
fascinating stories of the whole war. 

War officially began between France and Ger- 
many upon August 3rd at 6.45 p.m. when the 
German Ambassador in Paris asked for his pass- 
ports, and between Great Britain and Germany 
upon August 4th at 11 p.m., when our ultimatum 
in regard to Belgium was definitely rejected. But 
though then at war with Germany, England did 
not declare war on Austria until midnight of 
August 12th. A queer situation arose in the 



THE MEDITERRANEAN 117 

Mediterranean as the result of these gaps between 
the dates of active hostilities. Upon August 4th, 
the German cruisers could and did attack French 
territory without being attacked by us, and all 
through those fateful days of August 5th and 6th, 
when our three battle cruisers were hovering 
between Messina and the Adriatic and our four 
armoured cruisers were lying a little to the south 
off Syracuse, Italy was neutral, and Austria was 
not at war with us. Our naval commanders were 
in the highest degree anxious to do nothing which 
could in any way offend Italy — whose position 
as still a member of the Triple Alliance with Austria 
and Germany was delicate in the extreme — and 
were also anxious to commit no act of hostility 
towards Austria. Upon August 4th, therefore, 
their hands were tied tight; upon the 5th and 6th 
they were untied as against the German cruisers, 
but could not stretch into either Italian or Austrian 
waters. The German Admiral took full advantage 
of the freedom of movement allowed to him by 
our diplomatic bonds. 

Let us now come to the story of the escape of 
the two German cruisers, indicate as clearly as 
may be how it occurred, and suggest how the 
worst consequences of that escape might have 
been retrieved by instant and spirited action on 
the part of our Government at home. Naval 
responsibility, as distinct from political responsi- 
bility, ended with the escape of the Goeben and 
Breslau and their entry into the Dardanelles on 
the way up to Constantinople which then, and 
for nearly three months afterwards, was nominally 
a neutral port. 

On July 31st, 1914, the Goeben, a battle cruiser 



1 18 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

armed with ten 11-inch guns, and with a full 
speed of twenty-eight to twenty-nine knots, was at 
Brindisi in the territorial waters of Italy, a country 
which was then regarded by the Germans as an 
ally. She was joined there on August 1st by the 
Breslau, a light cruiser of some three knots less 
speed than the Goeben and armed only with twelve 
4.1-inch guns. The German commanders had 
been warned of the imminence of hostilities with 
France — and, indeed, upon that day French terri- 
tory had been violated by German covering troops, 
though war had not yet been declared. The 
French Fleet was far away to the west, already 
busied with the transport of troops from Algeria 
and Morocco to Marseilles. Based upon Malta 
and in touch with the French was the British 
heavy squadron of three battle cruisers. The 
Indefatigable, a heavier and faster vessel than 
either of the sisters Inflexible or Indomitable, was 
certainly a match for the Goeben by herself; the 
three battle cruisers combined were of over- 
powering strength. Accompanying the battle 
cruisers was the armoured cruiser squadron — 
Black Prince, Duke of Edinburgh,, Warrior and 
Defence — together with the light cruiser Gloucester, 
The other light cruisers and the destroyer escort 
do not come directly into my picture. The 
Gloucester — which, as she showed later, had the 
heels of the Breslau though not of the speedy 
Goeben — was despatched at once to the Adriatic 
to keep watch upon the movements of the Germans. 
So long as the Germans were in the Adriatic, the 
English Admiral, Sir Berkeley Milne, could do 
nothing to prevent their junction with the Austrians 
at Pola, but upon August 2nd, they both came 



THE MEDITERRANEAN 



119 




120 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

out and went to Messina, and so uncovered the 
Straits of Otranto, which gave passage between 
Messina and the Adriatic. The English battle 
cruisers then steamed to the south and east of 
Sicily, bound for the Otranto Straits. Rear- 
Admiral Troubridge, in command of the English 
armoured cruisers, remained behind. 

Upon August 1st, the Italian Government had 
declared its intention to be neutral, and upon 
the 3rd the Italian authorities at Messina refused 
coal to the German ships, very much to the out- 
spoken disgust and disappointment of the German 
Admiral who had reckoned Italy as at least passively 
benevolent. But being a man of resource, he 
tilled his bunkers from those of German vessels 
in the harbour, and early in the morning of August 
4th — having received news the previous evening 
that war had broken out with France, and was 
imminent with England — dashed at the Algerian 
coast and bombarded Philippeville and Bona, 
whence troops had been arranged to sail for France. 
When one reflects upon the position of Admiral 
Souchon, within easy striking distance of three 
English battle cruisers, which at any moment 
might have been transformed by wireless orders 
into enemies of overwhelming power, this dash 
upon Phillippeville and Bona was an exploit 
which would merit an honourable mention upon 
any navy's records. Souchon did, in the time 
available to him, all the damage that he could to 
his enemy's arrangements, and then sped back to 
Messina, passing on the way the Inflexible (flag), 
Indomitable, and Gloucester, which had thus got 
into close touch with the Germans, though they 
were not yet free to go for them. The enterprising 



THE MEDITERRANEAN 121 

Souchon had cut his time rather fine, and come 
near the edge of destruction; for though at the 
moment of passing the Inflexible and Indomitable 
England was still at peace with Germany, war was 
declared before he reached the neutral refuge of 
Messina on August 5th. Milne's hands were thus 
tied at the critical moment when he had both 
the elusive German cruisers under the muzzles of 
his hungry guns. 

At Messina the Goeben and Breslau were again 
refused coal, and were ordered to be clear of the 
port within twenty-four hours. Italy was reso- 
lutely neutral; it was a severe blow. Upon the 
night of August 4th-5th had come another blow 
— a wireless message, picked up at sea, that England 
had declared war. The position of the Germans 
now appeared to be desperate, more so to them 
than even to us, for Admiral Souchon had already 
been warned by the Austrian s not to attempt the 
passage of the Straits of Otranto, and had also 
received direct orders at Messina from Berlin to 
make a break eastwards for Constantinople. His 
prospects of eluding our Squadrons and of reaching 
the Dardanelles must have seemed to him of the 
smallest. It is of interest to note, as revealing 
the hardy quality of Admiral Souchon, that these 
orders from Berlin reached him at midnight upon 
August 3rd before he made his raid upon Phillippe- 
ville and Bona. He might have steamed off at 
once towards the east in comparative security, 
for England was not yet at war and our battle 
cruisers were not yet waiting upon his doorstep. 
But instead of seeking safety in flight he struck 
a shrewd blow for his country and set back the 
hour of his departure for the east by three whole 



L22 THE SILENT W A IVI1ERS 

(lavs. He sent off a. wireless message to Greece 

asking; that coal might bo got ready for his ships 
near an inconspicuous island in the ACgean. 
Admiral Souchon may personally bo a frightful 

Hun I don't know, I have never mot him but, 
I con toss that, as a sailor, he appeals to mo wry 
strongly. In resource, in oool decision, and in 
dashing leadership ho was the unquestioned superior 
of the English Admirals, whoso job it was to got 
the better of him. 

Upon August Oth, a day big with fate for us 
and for South Eastern Europe, the Ooeben and 
Breslau were at Messina with steam up. They 
had again obtained coal from compatriot ships 
and COUld snap their lingers at Italian neutrality. 
Watching them was the light cruiser Gloucester, 
which was no match at all for the Qoeben, and 
strung out to the north-oast, guarding the passage 
from Messina to the Adriatic, were the three 
English battle Cruisers Inflexible, Indomitable and 
Indefatigable. The English armoured cruisers, 
Blaek Prince, Duke of Edinburgh, Defence and 
Warrior, were cruising to the South of Syracuse. 
It is not contended that those four vessels could 
not have been off Messina, ami could not have met 
ami fought Souchon, when at last he issued forth. 
The contention is — and since it has boon accepted 
by the Admiralty as sound, one is compelled humbly 
to say little — that none of these cruisers was sutli- 
ciently armed or armoured to risk action with a 
battle cruiser of the Qoeben's class. It is urged 
that if Milne had ordered the armoured cruiser 
squadron to fight the Ooeben, their Admiral, 
Troubridge, might have anticipated the fate of 
Cradock three months later at Coroncl. Not one 



THE MEDITERRANEAN 123 

of them had a speed approaching that of the 
Goeben, and their twenty-two heavy guns were 
of 9.2-inch calibre as opposed to the ten 11-inch 
guns of the Germans. That they would have 
suffered serious loss is beyond doubt; but might 
they not, while dying, have damaged and delayed 
the Goeben for a sufficient time to allow the two 
Inflexible!* and the Indefatigable to come down 
and gobble her up? It is not for a layman to 
offer any opinion upon these high naval matters. 
But ever since the action was not fought, and the 
Goeben and Breslau escaped, whenever two or 
three naval officers are gathered together and the 
subject is discussed, the vote is always thrown 
upon the side of fighting. The Soul of the Navy 
revolts at the thought that its business is to play 
for safety when great risks boldly faced may yield 
great fruits of victory. 

The dispositions of the English Admiral were 
designed to meet one contingency only — an attempt 
by the Germans to pass the Straits of Otranto and 
to join the Austrians; he had evidently no sus- 
picion that they had been ordered to Constantinople 
and took no steps to bar their way to the east. 
The handling of his two ships by Admiral Souchon 
was masterly. Until the latest minute he masked 
his intentions and completely outmanoeuvred his 
powerful English opponents. Issuing from Messina 
on the afternoon of August 6th, he made towards 
the north-east as if about to hazard the passage 
to the Adriatic, and the small Gloucester, which 
most gallantly kept touch with far superior forces 
— she was some two knots slower than the Goeben, 
though rather faster than the Breslau — fell back 
before him and called up the battle cruisers on 



HM vuv SIl EN r WATCHERS 

her wireless* Souohon «.! i*.l Dot attempt to Interfere 

with the for she was doing exactly what 

ho desired of her, He kept upon his course to 

the north-east until darkness came down, and then 

swinging suddenly eight points to starboard, pointed 

straight for Capo Matapan t':ir off to the southeast 

and called for full speed, rhen and then only he 

gave the order to jam the Gloucester's wireless. 

He did not wholly succeed, the Clo 

warning of ins change of route got through to the 

battle OruiserSi but they Were too far away to 

interpose their bulky veto on the German plans. 
For two hours the German ships travelled at full 
speed, the Ooebi •; leading, and behind them trailed 
the gallant Gloucester, though she had nothing 

COX in her armoury than two 6 inoh guns, and 

OOUld have boon sunk by a single shell from the 

batteries, [Vice she overhauled the 

anil tired upon her, and twioo the tiocben 

had to fall back to the aid of hor consort and drive 

away the persistent English captain, The gallantry 

of the ( " alone redeems the event from 

being a bit tor Knglish humiliation. All the while 
she was vainly pursuing the German vessels the 
(»\\ •:..■>■>■ . - eontiuued her calls for help. They 
got through, but the Godk n and Btrslau had seised 
too long a start. They wore clear away for the 
Dardanelles and Constantinople, and wore safe 

from effective pursuit. 

Vice vdmiral Souchon know his Greeks and his 

Turks bettor than we did. lie eoalod his ships 
at the small island of Denusa in the Cyeladea with 
the direct connivance oi King Constantino, who 

had arranged for ooal to bo sent over from Syra. 
and ignored a formal message from the Sublime 



THE MEDITERRA] E L28 

Ports forbidding him to pass tho DardniK-Ww. 
j f r- was confident that the 'I urks* still anxious to 
lit upon the fence until th« ntxfar \.\<\<-. ww. 

doH'-.'J, would not dan; to fire upon him, and be 

wan {uftified in fa ■ •'■'•• He steamed 

through the Narrowi unrnolf;.-,t<:d and anchored 
before Constantinople There a telegram 

handed to hirn from the I "JJ. Majesty 

cm hi acknowledgments/' One must 

allow that the Imperial congratulation;-; were 

worthily bestowed Souchon had done to Ger- 
many a greater service than had any of her generals 
01 admiralf or diplomats] he had definitely com* 

mitted Turkey to the ride of the < antral I'owci .. 

If of all wor'J i of \/,uy><-. tai'l if.n 

1 h< '.'it, haV; \>(J:h l " 

Mof<: :-.'i'l :>.r< 

. be " 
Brd Hark 

For Hi': escape of the Cozhen and Bredcu f the 

WBM responsible, but for the conne- 

quences which grew out of thai e cape the respon- 
sibility rest* upon Lo fcude PolUigue at home. 
The naval failure mi^ht have b< < vwi within 

forty-eight houri had our Foreign Office under- 
stood the hesitating Turkish mind, arid had rei 

that Bouchon'f breach of the Dardanelles </>u- 

vention which bar. the I to foreign war- 

ships had brought to u '. a Heaven-sent oppor- 
tunity to cut the bonds of gold and intrigue which 
ad the Turkish Government to that of Germany, 

Every Englishman in Constantinople expected 

that a pursuing English squadron of overwhelming 
power would immediately appear ofl the Turkish 



126 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

capital and insist upon the surrender or destruction 
of the German trespassers. Just as Souchon had 
passed the Dardanelles unmolested, so Milne with 
his three battle cruisers — had orders been sent to 
him — might have passed them on the day follow- 
ing. The Turks own no argument but force, and 
the greater force would have appeared to them 
to be the better argument. Milne, had he been 
permitted by the British Foreign Office, could 
have followed the Goeben and Breslau to Constan- 
tinople and sunk them there before the eyes of the 
world. Had he done so, the history of the war 
would have been very different. Upon the Cabinet 
at home must rest the eternal responsibility for 
not seeing and not seizing the finest and least 
hazardous opportunity that has been offered to 
us of determining by one bold stroke the course of 
the war. The three English battle cruisers could 
not have seized Constantinople any more effectively 
than the English Squadron, without military co- 
operation, could have seized it seven months later 
had it succeeded in forcing with its guns the passage 
of the Narrows. But they could have revealed 
to the vacillating Turks, as in a lightning flash, 
that the Allies had the wit to see, and the boldness 
to grasp the vital opportunities offered by war. 
But our Government had neither the wit nor the 
courage, the wonderful chance was allowed to slip 
by unused, and the costliest failure of the war was 
consummated in all its tragic fullness. 

All through August and September and right 
up to the moment when, late in October, Turkey 
was forced into the war by German pressure, our 
Foreign Office hugged the belief — God alone knows 
how acquired — that diplomatic pressure at Con- 



THE MEDITERRANEAN 127 

stantinople could counteract the display of success- 
ful force embodied in the frowning guns of the 
Goeben and the Breslau. In the eyes of a non- 
maritime people two modern warships within easy 
gunshot of their chief city are of more pressing 
consequence than the Grand Fleet far away. Our 
Government accepted gladly the preposterous story 
that these German ships had been purchased by 
the Turks — with German money — and had been 
taken over by Turkish officers and crews. It is 
pitiful to read now the official statement isssued on 
August 15th, 1914, through the newly formed 
Press Bureau: "The Press Bureau states that 
there is no reason to doubt that the Turkish Gov- 
ernment is about to replace the German officers and 
crews of the Goeben and Breslau by Turkish officers 
and crews." As evidence of Oriental good faith 
a photograph of the Goeben flying the Turkish 
naval flag was kindly supplied for publication in 
English newspapers. What could be more con- 
vincing? Then, when the moment was ripe and 
there was no more need for the verisimilitude of 
photographs, came the rough awakening, an- 
nounced as follows: 

"On October 29th, without notice and without 
anything to show that such action was pending, 
three Turkish torpedo craft appeared suddenly 
before Odessa. . . . The same day the cruisers 
Breslau and Hamidieh bombarded several com- 
mercial ports in the Black Sea, including Novo- 
rossisk and Theodosia. In the forenoon of 
October 30th, the Goeben bombarded Sevastopol 
without causing any serious damage. By way of 
reprisals the Franco-British squadron in the Eastern 



128 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

Mediterranean carried out a demonstration against 
the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles at 
daybreak on November 3rd." 

No comment which I might make could bite 
more deeply than the bald quotation describing 
this irruption of Turkey as "without motive and 
without anything to show that such action was 
pending." Cacci sunt oculi cum animus alias 
res agit — The eyes are blind when the mind is 
obsessed. 



CHAPTER VII 

IN THE SOUTH SEAS: THE DISASTER OFF C'ORONEL 

Sunset and evening star 
And after that the dark. 

During the years 1912 and 1913 the Captain of 
the British cruiser Monmouth, the senior English 
Naval Officer on the China Station, and Admiral 
Count von Spee, commanding the German Far- 
Eastern Squadron, were close and intimate friends. 
The intimacy of the chiefs extended to the officers 
and men of the two squadrons. The English and 
Germans discussed with one another the chances 
of war between their nations, and wished one 
another the best of luck when the scrap came. 
The German Squadron, which has since been 
destroyed, was like no other in the Kaiser's Navy. 
It was commanded by professional officers and 
manned by long-service ratings. It had taken 
for its model the English Navy, and it had ab- 
sorbed much of the English naval spirit. Count 
von Spee, though a Prussian Junker, was a gentle- 
man, and with Captain von Muller, who after- 
wards made the name of the Emden immortal, was 
worthy to serve under the White Ensign. Let 
us always be just to those of our foes who, though 
they fight with us terribly, yet remain our chivalrous 

129 



130 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

friends. I will tell a pretty story which will 
illustrate the spirit of comradeship which existed 
between the English and German squadrons during 
those two years before the war. 

In December 1912 the Monmouth was cruising 
in the Gulf of Pechili, which resembles a long 
flask with a narrow bottle neck. Admiral von 
Spee, who was lying with his powerful squadron 
off Chii'u, in the neck of the bottle, received word 
from a correspondent that the second Balkan War 
had brought England and Germany within a short 
distance of " Der Tag." Von Spee and his officers 
did not clink glasses to " The Day " ; they were 
professionals who knew the English Navy and its 
incomparable power; they left silly boastings to 
civilians and to their colleagues of Kiel who had 
not eaten of English salt. Count von Spee thought 
first of his English friend who, in his elderly cruiser, 
was away up in the Gulf at the mercy of the 
German Squadron, which was as a cork in its 
neck. He at once dispatched a destroyer to find 
the Monmouth's captain and to warn him that 
though there might be nothing in the news it 
were better for him to get clear of the Gulf. 
"There may be nothing in the yarn," he wrote, 
"I have had many scares before. But it would 
be well if you got out of the Gulf. I should be 
most sorry to have to sink you." When the 
destroyer came up with the Monmouth she had 
returned to Wei-hai-wei, and the message was 
delivered. Her skipper laughed, and sent an 
answer somewhat as follows: "My dear von Spee, 
thank you very much. I am here. J'y suis, 
J'y reste. I shall expect you and your guns at 
breakfast to-morrow morning." War did not 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 131 

come then; when von Spee did meet and sink 
the Monmouth she had another captain in com- 
mand, but the story remains as evidence of the 
chivalrous naval spirit of the gallant and skilful 
von Spee. 

In November 1913 the Monmouth left the China 
Station, and before she went, upon November 6th, 
her crew were entertained sumptuously by von 
Spee and von Miiller. She was paid off in January 
1914, after reaching home, but was recommissioned 
in the following July for the test mobilisation, 
which at the moment meant so much, and which 
a few weeks later was to mean so much more. 
When the war broke out, the Monmouth, with her 
new officers and men, half of whom were naval 
reservists, was sent back to the Pacific. The 
armoured cruiser Good Hope, also commissioned 
in July, was sent with her, and the old battleship 
Canopus was despatched a little later. Details of 
the movements of these and of other of our war 
ships in the South Atlantic and Pacific are given 
in the chapters entitled "The Cruise of the Glas- 
gow" The Glasgow had been in the South Atlantic 
at the outbreak of war, and was joined there by 
the Good Hope and Monmouth. 

Meanwhile war had broken out, and we will for 
a few moments consider what resulted. The 
Emden, Captain von Miiller, was at the German 
base of Tsing-tau, but Admiral von Spee, with the 
armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, was 
among the German Caroline Islands far to the 
south of the China Sea. The Dresden was in 
the West Indies and the Leipzig and Nurnberg on the 
West .Coast of Mexico (the Pacific side). The 
Jap anese* .F leet undertook to keep von Spee out 



132 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

of China waters to the north, and the Australian 
Chit - which then was at full strength ami included 
the battle cruiser Australia with her eight 12-inoh 
guns and the light cruisers Melbourne and Sydney, 
each armed with eight sixes made themselves 
responsible for the Australian end of the big sea 
area. The Emdcn, disguised as an Knglish cruiser, 
with four funnels the dummy one made of 
canvas got out of Tsing-tau under the noses of 
the Japanese watchers, made off towards the 
Indian Ocean, and pursued that lively and solitary 

career which came to its appointed end at the 
Cocos-Kceling Islands, as will be described fully 
later on in this book. The Australian Unit, burn- 
ing with lea] to tire its maiden guns at a substantial 
enemy, sought diligently for von Spec and requisi- 
tioned the assistance of the French armoured 

cruiser Montcalm, an old slow and not very useful 
vessel which happened to be available for the hunt. 
Von Spec was discovered in his island retreat and 
pursued as far as Fiji, but the long arm of the 
Knglish Admiralty then interposed and upset the 
merry game. We were short of battle cruisers 
where we wanted them most in the North Sea 
so the Australia was summoned home and the 
remaining ships of the Unit, no longer by them- 
selves a mat eh for Von Spec, were ordered back 
to Sydney in deep disgust. "A little more." 
deelared the bold Australians, who under their 
Knglish professional officers had been hammered 
into a real Naval Unit, '"and we would have done 
the work which the Invincible and Inflexible had 
to do later. If we had been left alone there would 
not have been any disaster off Coronel." While 
one can sympathise with complaints such as this 



JN THE SOUTH SEAS 188 

from eager fire-eaters, 0116 has to accept their 
assertions with due caution. The German High 

Fleet was at that time a more important 

objective than even von Spec. So the Auxt/ralia 
nailed for England to join up with the Grand Fleet, 
and von Spec had rest for several weeks. He was 

not very enterprising. Commerce hunting did 

not much appeal to him, though his light cruisers, 
the Dresden and Leipzig, did some little work in 
that line when on their way to join their Chief 
at Easter Island where the squadron ultimately 
Concentrated On the way across, von Spec 
trisited Samoa, from which we had torn down the 

German flag, but did no damage there. On 
September 22nd, he bombarded Tahiti, in the 

Society Islands, a foolish proceeding of winch 

lie repented later on when the Coronel action left 
him short of shell with no means of replenish- 
ment. For eight days he stayed in the Marquesas 

Inlands taking in provisions, thence he went to 
Easter Island arid Masafuera, arid so to Valparaiso, 
where the Chilian Government, though neutral, 

was not unbenevolent. He was for three weeks 
at Easter Island (Chilian territory;, coaling from 
German ships there, and in this remote spot — a 
sort of Chilian St. Kilda — remained hidden both 
from the Chilian authorities and from our South 

Atlantic Squadron. 

We must now return to the British Squadron 
which had been sent out to deal with von Spec 
as best it might. Cradoek with such a squadron, 
all, except the light cruiser (Jlaagov), old and slow, 
had no means of bringing von Spec to action under 
conditions favourable to himself, or of refusing 
action when conditions were adverse. Von Spec, 



134 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

with his concentrated homogeneous squadron, all 
comparatively new and well-armed cruisers, all 
of about the same speed of twenty-one or twenty- 
two knots, all trained to a hair by constant work 
during a three years' commission, had under his 
hand an engine of war perfect of its kind. He 
could be sure of getting the utmost out of co- 
operative efforts. The most powerful in guns of 
the English vessels was the battleship Canopus, 
which, when the action off Coronel was fought, 
was 200 miles away to the south. She bore four 
12-inch guns in barbettes — in addition to twelve 
sixes — but she was fourteen years old and could 
not raise more than about thirteen to fourteen 
knots except for an occasional burst. Any one 
of von Spee's ships, with 50 per cent, more speed, 
could have made rings round her. Had Cradock 
waited for the Canopus, — as he was implored to 
do by her captain, Grant, — and set the speed of his 
squadron by hers, von Spee could have fought 
him or evaded him exactly as he pleased. "If 
the English had kept their forces together," wrote 
von Spee after Coronel, "then we should certainly 
have got the worst of it." This was the modest 
judgment of a brave man, but it is scarcely true. 
If the English had kept their forces together von 
Spee need never have fought; they would have 
had not the smallest chance of getting near him 
except by his own wish. Admiral Cradock flew 
his flag in the armoured cruiser Good Hope, which, 
though of 14,000 tons and 520 feet long, had only 
two guns of bigger calibre than 6-inch. These were 
of 9.2 inches, throwing a shell of 380 lb., but the 
guns, like the ship, were twelve years old. Her 
speed was about seventeen knots, four or five 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 135 

knots less than that of the German cruisers she 
had come to chase ! The Monmouth, of the ' ' County 
Class," was as obsolete as the Good Hope. Eleven 
years old, of nearly 10,000 tons, she carried nothing 
better than fourteen 6-inch guns of bygone pattern. 
She may have been good for a knot or two 
more than the Good Hope, but her cruising and 
fighting speed was, of course, that of the flag- 
ship. 

The one effective ship of the whole squadron 
was the Glasgow, which curiously enough is the 
sole survivor now of the Coronel action, either 
German or English. Out of the eight warships 
which fought there off the Chilian coast on No- 
vember 1st, 1914, five German and three English, 
the Glasgow alone remains afloat. She is a modern 
light cruiser, first commissioned in 1911. The 
Glasgow is light, long and lean. She showed that 
she could steam fully twenty-five knots and 
could fight her two 6-inch and ten 4-inch guns 
most effectively. She was a match for any one of 
von Spee's light cruisers, though unable to stand 
up to the Scharnhorst or Gneisenau. The modern 
English navy has been built under the modern 
doctrine of speed and gun-power — the Good Hope, 
Monmouth, and Canopus, the products of a bad, 
stupid era in naval shipbuilding, had neither speed 
nor gun-power. The result, the inevitable result, 
was the disaster of Coronel in which the English 
ships were completely defeated and the Germans 
barely scratched. The Germans had learned the 
lesson which we ourselves had taught them. 

When one considers the two squadrons which 
met and fought off Coronel, in the light of ex- 
perience cast by war, one feels no surprise that 



136 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the action was over in fifty-two minutes. Cradock 
and his men, 1,600 of them, fought and died. 

Sunset and evening star 
And after that the dark. 

The Glasgow would also have been lost had she 
not been a new ship with speed and commanded 
by a man with the moral courage to use it in order 
to preserve his vessel and her crew for the further 
service of their country. Von Spee, who had 
the mastery of manoeuvre, brought Cradock to 
action when and how he pleased, and emphasised 
for the hundredth time in naval warfare that speed 
and striking power and squadron training will 
win victory certainly, inevitably, and almost, with- 
out hurt to the victors. Like the Falkland Islands 
action of five weeks afterwards, that off Coronel 
was a gun action. No torpedoes were used on 
either side. Probably it was one of the last purely 
gun actions which will be fought in our time. 

At the end of October the British and German 
squadrons were near to one another, though until 
they actually met off Coronel the British com- 
manders did not know that the concentrated 
German Squadron was off the Chilian coast. Von 
Spee knew that an old pre-Dreadnought battle- 
ship had come out from England, though he was 
not sure of her class. He judged her speed to be 
higher than that of the Canopus, which, though 
powerfully armed, was so lame a duck that she 
would have been more of a hindrance than a help 
had Cradock joined up with her. Von Spee had 
an immense advantage in the greater handiness 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 137 

and cohesiveness of his ships. The Scharnhorst 
and Gneisenau were sisters, completed in 1907, 
and alike in all respects. Their shooting records 
were first-class; they were indeed the crack 
gunnery ships under the German ensign. Their 
sixteen 8.2-inch guns — eight each — fired shells of 
275 lb. weight, nearly three times the weight of 
the 100-lb. shells fired from the 6-inch guns which 
formed the chief batteries of their opponents the 
Good Hope and Monmouth. They were three 
months out of dock but they could still steam, as 
they showed at Coronel, at over twenty knots in 
a heavy sea. The light cruisers Dresden, Leipzig 
and Nurnberg were not identical though very 
nearly alike. Their armament was the same — 
ten 4.1-inch guns apiece — and their speed nearly 
the same. The Dresden was the fastest as she 
was the newest, a sister of the famous Emden. 
None of the German light cruisers was so fast or 
so powerful as the Glasgow, but together they 
were much more than a match for her, just as 
the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau together were more 
than a match for the Good Hope and Monmouth. 
When, therefore, von Spee found himself opposed 
to the British armoured cruisers he was 
under no anxiety; he had the heels of them and 
the guns of them; they could neither fight success- 
fully with him nor escape from him. The speedy 
Glasgow might escape — as in fact she did — but 
the Good Hope and the Monmouth were doomed 
from the moment when the action was joined. 

I have dwelt upon the characteristics of the 
rival squadrons at the risk of being wearisome 
since an understanding of their qualities is essential 
to an understanding of the action. 



138 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

On October 31st. the Glasgow put into Coroncl, 
a small coating port near Concepcion and to the 

south of Valparaiso, which had become von Spec's 
unofficial base, lie did not remain in territorial 
waters for more than twenty-four hours at a time, 
but he got what he liked from German ships in 
the harbour. The Glasgow kept in wireless touch 
with the Good Hope and Monmouth, which were 
some fifty miles out at sea to the west, and von 
Spec picked up enough from the English wireless 
to know that one of our cruisers was at Coronel. 
At once he despatched the Niirnberg to shadow 
the Glasgow, to stroll as it were unostentatiously 
past the little harbour, while he with the rest of 
the squadron stayed out of sight to the north. 
In the morning of November 1st out came the 
Glasgow and made for the rendezvous where she 
w T as to join the other cruisers and the Olranto, 
an armed liner by which they w r ere accompanied. 
The wireless signals passing between the watching 
Xiirnberg and von Spec were in their turn picked 
up by the Good Hope, so that each squadron then 
knew that an enemy was not far off. Cradoek, 
an English seaman of the fighting type, deter- 
mined to seek out the Germans, though he must 
have suspected their superiority of force. Neither 
side actually knew the strength of the other. 
Cradoek spread out his vessels fan-wise in the 
early afternoon and ordered them to steam in this 
fashion at fifteen knots to the north-east. 

At twenty minutes past four the nearest ships 
on either side began to sight one another, and 
until they did so Cradoek had no knowledge that 
he had knocked up against the whole of the German 
Pacific Squadron. The German concentration had 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 



139 




THE SOCTU 8EA3. 



140 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

been effected secretly and most successfully. When 
the Scharnhorst, von Spee's flagship, first saw the 
Glasgow and Monmouth they were far off to the 
west-south-west and had to wait for more than 
half an hour until the Good Hope, which was still 
farther out to the west, could join hands with them. 
Meanwhile the German ships, which were also 
spread out, had concentrated on the Scharnhorst. 
They were the Gneisenau, Dresden, and Leipzig, 
for the Niirnberg had not returned from her watch- 
ing duties. Cradock, who saw at once that the 
Germans were getting between his ships and the 
Chilian coast, and that he would be at a grave 
disadvantage by being silhouetted against the 
western sky, tried to work in towards the land. 
But von Spee, grasping his enemy's purpose, set 
the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau going at twenty 
knots due south against a heavy sea and forced 
himself between Cradock and the coast. When 
the two light cruisers drew up, the four German 
ships fell into line parallel with the English cruisers 
and between them and the land. All these pre- 
liminary manoeuvres were put through while the 
two squadrons were still twelve miles apart, and 
they determined the issue of the subsequent action. 
For von Spee, having thrust the English against 
the background of the declining sun and being 
able, with his greater speed, to hold them in this 
position and to decide absolutely the moment 
when the firing should begin, had effectively won 
the action before a shot had been fired. So long 
as the sun was above the horizon the German 
ships were lighted up and would have made 
admirable marks could Cradock have got within 
range. But von Spee had no intention of letting 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 141 

i 
him get within range until the sun had actually- 
set and had ceased to give light to Cradock's 
gunners. His own men for an hour afterwards 
could see the English ships standing out as clearly 
as black paper outlines stuck upon a yellow canvas 
screen. "I had manoeuvred/ ' wrote von Spee 
to a friend, on the day following the action, "so 
that the sun in the west could not disturb me. . . . 
When we were about five miles off I ordered the 
firing to commence. The battle had begun, and 
with a few changes, of course, I led the line quite 
calmly." He might well be calm. The greater 
speed of his squadron had enabled him to out- 
manoeuvre the English ships, and to wait until 
the sunset gave him a perfect mark and the English 
no mark at all. He might well be calm. Dark- 
ness everywhere, except in the western sky behind 
Cradock's ships, came down very quickly, the 
nearly full moon was not yet up, the night was fine 
except for scuds of rain at intervals. Between 
seven and eight o'clock — between sunset and 
moonrise — von Spee had a full hour in which to 
do his work, and he made the fullest use of the 
time. At three minutes past seven he began to 
fire, when the range was between five and six 
miles, and he hit the Good Hope at the second salvo. 
His consort the Gneisenau did the same with the 
Monmouth. It was fine shooting, but not extraor- 
dinary, for the German cruisers were crack ships 
and the marks were perfect. At the third salvo 
both the Good Hope and Monmouth burst into 
flames forrard, and remained on fire, for German 
shell rained on them continually. They could 
rarely see to reply and never replied effectively. 
The Good Hope's lower deck guns were smothered 



142 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

by the sea and were, for all practical purposes, 
out of action. Yet they fought as best they could. 
Von Spee slowly closed in and the torrent of heavy 
shell became more and more bitter. We have no 
record of the action from the Good Hope and 
Monmouth, for not a man was saved from either 
ship. The Glasgow, which, after the Otranto had 
properly made off early in the action — she was not 
built for hot naval work — had both the Dresden 
and the Leipzig to look after, could tell only of 
her own experiences. Captain Luce in quiet sea 
service fashion has brought home to us what 
they were. "Though it was most trying to receive 
a great volume of fire without a chance of returning 
it adequately, all kept perfectly cool, there was 
no wild firing, and discipline was the same as at 
battle practice. When a target ceased to be 
visible gunlayers simultaneously ceased fire." Yet 
the crews of active ratings and reservists strug- 
gled gamely to the end. It came swiftly and 
mercifully. 

We have detailed accounts of the action from 
the German side, of which the best was written 
by von Spee himself on the following day. There 
is nothing of boasting or vainglory about his simple 
story: though the man was German he seems to 
have been white all through. I have heard much 
of him from those who knew him intimately, and 
willingly accept his narrative as a plain statement 
of fact. Given the conditions, the speed and 
powers of the opposing squadrons, the skilful 
preliminary manoeuvres of von Spee before a shot 
was fired, and the veil of darkness which hid the 
German ships from the luckless English gunners, 
the result, as von Spee reveals it, was inevitable. 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 143 

He held his fire until after sunset, and then closing 
in to about 10,000 yards — a little over five miles — 
gave the order to begin. He himself led the line 
in the Scharnhorst and engaged the Good Hope, 
the Gneisenau following him took the Monmouth, 
as her opposite number. The Leipzig engaged 
the Glasgow, and the Dresden the Otranto. The 
shell from the 8.2-inch batteries of the German 
armoured cruisers — each could use six guns on a 
broadside — got home at the second salvo and the 
range was kept without apparent difficulty. The 
fires which almost immediately broke out in 
the Good Hope and Monmouth gave much aid to the 
German gunners, who, when the quick darkness of 
the southern night came down, were spared the 
use of their searchlights. "As the two big enemy 
ships were in flames," writes one careful German 
observer, "we were able to economise our search- 
lights." Then, closing in to about 5,000 yards, 
von Spee poured in a terrific fire so rapid and 
sustained that he shot away nearly half his am- 
munition. After fifty- two minutes from the firing 
of the first shell the Good Hope blew up. " She 
looked," wrote von Spee, "like a splendid fire- 
work display against a dark sky. The glowing 
white flames, mingled with bright green stars, 
shot up to a great height." Cradock's flagship 
then sank, though von Spee thought for long 
afterwards that she was still afloat. The Otranto 
had made her escape, but the Monmouth, which 
could not get away, and the Glasgow — which at 
any moment could have shown the enemy her heels 
— still continued the unequal fight. The night 
had become quite dark, the flames in the Mon- 
mouth had burned out or been extinguished, and 



144 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the Germans had lost sight of their prey. The 
Scharnhorst and Gneiscnau worked round to the 
south, and the Leipzig and Dresden were sent curv- 
ing to the north and west, in order to keep the 
English ships away from the shelter of the land. 
Just then the light cruiser Nwniberg, which had been 
sent upon the scouting expedition of which I 
have told, arrived upon the scene of action and 
encountered the crippled Monmouth, Had the 
English cruiser been undamaged, she could soon 
have disposed of this new combatant, but she was 
listing heavily and unable to use her guns. Run- 
ning up close the Niimberg poured in a broadside 
which sent the Monmouth to the bottom. The 
Glasgow, badly damaged above water, but still 
full of speed and mettle, could do no more. The 
big German cruisers were coming up. Her cap- 
tain took the only possible course. Shortly before 
the stricken Monmouth disappeared under the 
waves he made off at full speed. 

No one was picked up, either from the Good 
Hope or the Monmouth. Von Spee, who was not 
the man to neglect the rescue of his drowning 
enemies, gives an explanation. He was far from 
the Good Hope when she blew up, but the Niimberg 
was quite close to the foundering Monmouth; 
why was no attempt made at rescue in her case 
at least? It was dark and there was a heavy sea 
running, but the risks of a rescue are not sufficient 
to excuse the absence of any attempt. The Niirn- 
berg had not been in the main action, she was 
flying up, knowing nothing of what had occurred, 
when she met and sank the Monmouth. Her 
captain saw other big ships approaching and 
thought that one of them was the Good Hope. 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 145 

This is von Spee's excuse for the omission of his 
subordinate to put out boats — or even life lines — 
but one suspects that the captain of the Niirnberg 
had a bad quarter of an hour when next he met 
his chief. 

The German squadron was undamaged, scarcely- 
touched. Three men were wounded by splinters 
in the Gneisenau. That is the whole casualty list. 
One 6-inch shell went through the deck of the 
Scharnhorst but did not explode — the "creature 
just lay down " and went to sleep. "It lay there," 
writes von Spee, "as a kind of greeting." The 
light German cruisers were not touched at all. 
But though the German squadron had come through 
the fight unharmed, it had ceased to be of much 
account in a future battle. The silly bombard- 
ment of Tahiti, and the action off Coronel, had so 
depleted the once overflowing magazines that not 
half the proper number of rounds were left for 
the heavy guns. No fresh supplies could be 
obtained. Von Spee could fight again, but he 
could not have won again had he been opposed 
to much lighter metal than that which overwhelmed 
him a few weeks later off the Falkland Islands. 

On the second day after the action von Spee 
returned to Valparaiso. Though his own ship 
had fought with the Good Hope and he had seen 
her blow up he did not know for certain what had 
become of her. This well illustrates the small 
value of observers' estimates of damage done to 
opponents during the confusion of even the simplest 
of naval fights. Distances are so great and light 
is so variable. The destruction of the Monmouth 
was known, but not that of the Good Hope. So 
von Spee made for Valparaiso to find out if the 



146 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

English flagship had sought shelter there. In- 
cidentally lie book with him the first news of his 
victory, and the large German colony in the 
Chilian city burned to celebrate the occasion in 
characteristic fashion. Hut von S|n>e gave little 
encouragement, lie was under no illusions. He 
fully realized the power of the English Navy and 
that his own existence and that of his squadron 
would speedily be determined, lie "absolutely 

refused" to be celebrated as national hero, and 
at the German club, where he spent an hour and 
a half, declined to drink a toast, directed in offensive 
terms against his English enemies. In his conduct 
of the lights with our ships, in his orders, in his 
private letters. Admiral von Spec stands out as 
a simple honest gentleman. 

He was a man not very energetic. Though 
forcible in action and a most skilful naval tactician, 
he does not seem to have had any plans for the 
general handling of his squadron. If an enemy 
turned up he fought him, but he did not go out 
of his way to seek after him. He dawdled about 
among the Pacific Islands during September and 
at Easter Island during most of October; after 
Coronel he lingered in and out of Valparaiso doing 
nothing. He must have known that England 
would not sit down in idle lamentation, but he 
did nothing to anticipate and defeat her plans for 
his destruction. His shortage of coal and am- 
munition caused him to forbid the commerce 
raiding which appealed to the officers of his light 
cruisers, and probably the same weakness made 
him reluctant to seek any other adventures. For 
five weeks he made no attempt even to raid the 
Falkland Islands, which lay helplessly expecting 



JN THE SOUTH SEAS J 17 

his stroke, and when at last he started out by the 
long safe southern route round the Horn, it was 
to walk into the mouth of the avenging English 
squadron which had been gathered there to receive 

him. One thing is quite certain: he heard no 
whisper of the English plans and expected to meet 
nothing at the Falkland Islands more formidable 
than the Canopus, the Glasgow, and perhaps one 
or two "County Class" cruisers, such as the 
Cornwall or Kent. Ife never expected to be 
crunched in the savage jaws of two battle cruisers! 
While this kindly, rather indolent German Ad- 
miral was marking time off the Chilian coast, the 
squadron which was to avenge the blunder of 
Coronel was assembling from the ends of the earth 
towards the appointed rendezvous off the Brazilian 
coast. The Bristol, a sister of the Glasgow, had 
come in from a long cruise in the West Indies, dur- 
ing which she had met and exchanged harmless 
shots with another German wanderer, the Karlsruhe* 
The Invincible and Inflexible were racing down from 
the north. The Cornwall and Kent, burning to 
show that even "County" cruisers were not wholly 
useless in battle, and the armoured cruiser Car- 
narvon were already in the South Atlantic. The 
poor old Canopus and the Glasgow had foregathered 
at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands on 
November 8th, but were immediately ordered 
north to Montevideo to meet the other cruisers 
on the passage south. They left in accordance 
with these orders, but the Canopus was turned 
back by wireless, so that Port Stanley might have 
some naval protection against the expected von 
Spee raid. Here the Canopus was put aground 
in the mud, painted in futurist colours, and con- 



148 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

verted Into a Land fort. With her four L2-inoh 
guns she oould at least have made the inner harbour 
impassable to the Germans. The Glasgow docked 

for repairs at Rio, and then joined the avenging 
squadron which had concentrated off Brasil, and 
with them swept down to the Falkland Islands 
which were reached upon the evening of Decem- 
ber 7th. All the English ships, to which had been 
committed the destruction of von Spec, had then 

arrived. The BtagQ was set and the eurtain about 
to go up upon the seeond and final aet of the 
Pacifio drama. I'pon the early morning of the 
following day. as if in response to a eall by Fate, 
von Spec and his squadron arrived. After five 
weeks of delay he had at last made up his mind to 
strike. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EM TBI SOUTH SEAS: CLEAMTMO. UP 

NOW J '• the winter of O'Jr 'Jiv^ntent, 

little glorfoui n i mmff . . . 

A/i'J all 0j<; dood | thftt lotlf'd 

i/i Uj«: 'J';<;J> Jx/SO/fl of f.n<: ')< <:h.h KiljriVJ. 

The naval operations which culminated in the 
Bjction off the Falkland Islands are associated 

vividly in my rrii/jd with two little personal in- 
cident:-;. On November 12th, 1914, a week after 
the distressful news had reached this country of 
the destruction by the enemy of the crui:-.er~ Qood 
Hope and Monmouth off the Chilian coa.-t, a small 
hlip of paper wan brought to rne in an envelope 

which had not passed through the post. I will 

not :,ay from whom or whence that paper carne. 
Upon it were written these word:-,: "The battle 

erui lers Invincible and Inflexible have left for the 
South Atlantic." That ires all, twelve words, 

but rarely ha:- news which meant SO much been 
packed into ill a space. The German Sea 

Command would have given a very great deal 

for the light of that Scrap Of paper which, when 

read, I burned. For it meant that two Cast 
battle cruisers, each carrying eight 12-inch guns, 
were at that moment speeding south to dispose 

for ever of von Spee's Pacific Squadron. The 
battle cruisers docked and coaled at DeVOUport 

us 



150 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

on November 9th, 10th and 11th; hundreds of 
humble folk like myself must have known of their 
mission and its grim purpose, yet not then nor 
afterwards until their work was done did a whisper 
of their sailing reach the ears of Germany. 

The Invincible and Inflexible coaled off St. Vin- 
cent, Cape Verde Islands, and again south of the 
Line. At the appointed rendezvous off Brazil they 
were joined by the Carnarvon, Kent, Cornwall, 
and Bristol, the armed liner Orama, and many 
colliers. Weeks had passed and yet no word of 
the English plans, even of the concentration in 
force, reached von Spee, who still thought that 
he had nothing more formidable to deal with than 
a few light cruisers and the old battleship Canopus. 

Nothing is more difficult to kill than a legend, 
and perhaps the most invulnerable of legends is 
that one which attributes to the German Secret 
Service a superhuman efficiency. I offer to the 
still faithful English believers two facts which in 
a rational world would blast that legend for ever: 
the secret mission of the Invincible and Inflexible 
to the Falkland Islands in November-December 
1914, and the silent transport of the original 
British Expeditionary Force across the Channel 
during the first three weeks of war. And yet, 
I suppose, the legend will survive. The strongest 
case, says Anatole France in Penguin Island, is 
that which is wholly unsupported by evidence. 

The second incident which sticks in my mind 
was a scene in a big public hall on the evening of 
December 9th. Lord Rosebery was in the middle 
of a recruiting speech — chiefly addressed, as he 
plaintively observed, to an audience of baldheads 
— when there came a sudden interruption. Pink 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 151 

newspapers fluttered across the platform, the 
coat tails of the speaker were seized, and one of 
the papers thrust into his hands. We all waited 
while Lord Rosebery adjusted his glasses and read 
a stop-press message. What he found there pleased 
him, but he was in no hurry to impart his news 
to us. He smiled benevolently at our impatience, 
and deliberately worked us up to the desired 
pitch of his dramatic intensity. Then at last he 
stepped forward and read: 

"At 7.30 a.m. on December 8th the Scharnhorst, 
the Gneisenau, the N umber g, the Leipzig, and the 
Dresden were sighted near the Falkland Islands 
by a British Squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir 
Frederick Sturdee. An action followed in the 
course of which the Scharnhorst (flying the flag of 
Admiral Graf von Spee), the Gneisenau, and the 
Leipzig were . . . sunk." 

At that word, pronounced with tremendous 
emphasis, 6,000 people jumped to their feet; 
they shouted, they cheered, they stamped upon 
the floor, they sang "Rule Britannia" till the 
walls swayed and the roof shuddered upon its 
joists. It was a scene less of exultation than of 
relief, relief that the faith of the British people 
in the long arm of the Royal Navy had been so 
fully justified. Cradock and the gallant dead of 
Coronel had been avenged. The mess had been 
cleaned up. 

"I thought," said Lord Rosebery, as soon as 
the tumult had died down, "I thought that would 
wake you up." 



At Devonport the Invincible and Inflexible had 



152 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

been loaded "to the utmost capacity," not only 
with stores and ammunition for their own use, but 
with supplies to replenish the depleted magazines 
of their future consorts. They steamed easily 
well out of sight of land, except when they put in 
to coal off St. Vincent, and made the trip of 4,000 
miles to the rendezvous near the Line in a little 
over fourteen days. They cleared the Sound in 
the evening of November 11th, and found the 
other cruisers I have mentioned awaiting them 
at the appointed rendezvous off the Brazilian coast 
in the early morning of November 26th. Two 
days passed, days of sweltering tropic heat, during 
which the stores, brought by the battle cruisers, 
were parcelled out among the other ships and 
coal was taken in by all the ships from the attend- 
ant colliers. The speed of a far-cruising squadron 
is determined absolutely by its coal supplies. 
When voracious eaters of coal like battle cruisers 
undertake long voyages, it behoves them to cut 
their fighting speed of some twenty-eight knots 
down to a cruising speed of about one-half. By 
the morning of Saturday, November 28th, the now 
concentrated and fully equipped avenging Squadron 
was ready for its last lap of 2,500 miles to the 
Falkland Islands. The English vessels, spread 
out in a huge fan, swept down, continually search- 
ing for the enemy off the coasts of South America, 
where rumour hinted that he had taken refuge. 
The several ships steamed within the extreme 
range of visible signalling — so that no tell-tale 
wireless waves might crackle forth warnings to 
von Spee. It was high summer in the south 
and the weather glorious, though the temperature 
steadily fell as the chilly solitudes of the Falklands 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 153 

were approached. No Germans were sighted, 
and the Falkland Islands were reached before 
noon on December 7th. The Squadron had 
already been met at the rendezvous and joined 
by the light cruiser Glasgow. The old Canopus, 
so slow and useless as a battleship that she had 
been put aground on the mud of the inner harbour 
(Port Stanley) to protect the little settlement there, 
was found at her useful but rather inglorious post. 
Most of the vessels anchored in the large outer 
harbour (Port William) and coaling was begun at 
once, but though it was continued at dawn of 
the following day it was not then destined to be 
completed. 

Up to this moment the plans of Whitehall had 
worked to perfection. The two great battle 
cruisers had arrived at the rendezvous from 
England, the Squadron had secretly concentrated 
and then searched the South Atlantic, the Falkland 
Islands had been secured from a successful surprise 
attack which would have given much joy to our 
enemies, yet not a whisper of his fast-approaching 
doom had sped over the ether to von Spee. 
Throughout the critical weeks of our activity he 
had dawdled irresolutely off Valparaiso. All our 
ships were ready for battle, even the light cruiser 
Glasgow, so heavily battered in the Coronel action 
that her inside had been built up with wooden 
shores till it resembled the "Epping Forest," after 
which the lower deck had christened it, and she 
had a hole as big as a church door in one side 
above the water-line. She had steamed to Rio 
in this unhappy plight and had been there well 
and faithfully repaired. Captain Luce and his 
men were full of fight; they had their hurts and 



154 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

their humiliation to avenge and meant to get 
their own back with interest. They did; their 
chance came upon the following day, and they 
used it to the full. 

Whitehall had done its best, and now came a 
benevolent Joss to put the crowning seal upon its 
work. Coronel was bad black Joss, but the Falk- 
land Islands will go down to history as a shining 
example of the whiteness of the Navy's good Joss 
when in a mood of real benignity. We desired 
two things to round off the scheme roughed out 
at the Admiralty on November 6th: we wanted 
— though it was the last thing which we expected 
— we wanted the German Pacific Squadron to 
walk into the trap which had so daintily been 
prepared, and they came immediately, on the 
very first morning after our arrival at the Falkland 
Islands, at the actual moment when Vice-Admiral 
Sturdee and Rear-Admiral Stoddart (of the Car- 
narvon), with heads bent over a big chart, were 
discussing plans of search. They might have 
come and played havoc with the Islands on any 
morning during the previous five weeks, yet they 
did not come until December 8th, when we were 
just ready and most heartily anxious to receive 
them hospitably. We wanted a fine clear day 
with what the Navy calls ''full visibility.' ' We 
got it on December 8th. And this was a very 
wonderful thing, for the Falkland Islands are 
cursed with a vile cold climate, almost as cold 
in the summer of December as in the winter of 
June. It rains there about 230 days in the year, 
and even when the rain does not fall fog is far 
more frequent than sunshine. The climate of the 
Falklands is even some points more forbidding 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 155 

than the dreadful climate of Lewis in the Hebrides, 
which it closely resembles. Yet now and then, 
at rare intervals, come gracious days, and one of 
them, the best of the year, dawned upon December 
8th. The air was bright and clear, visibility was 
at its maximum, the sea was calm, and a light 
breeze blew gently from the north-west. Our 
gunners had a full view to the horizon and a 
kindly swell to swing the gunsights upon their 
marks. For Sturdee and his gunners it was a 
day of days. Had von Spee come upon a wet 
and dull morning all would have been spoiled; he 
could have got away, his squadron could have 
scattered, and we should have had many weary 
weeks of search before compassing his destruction. 
But he came upon the one morning of the year 
when we were ready for him and the perfect 
weather conditions made escape impossible. Our 
gunnery officers from their spotting tops could 
see as far as even the great 12-inch guns could 
shoot. When the Fates mean real business there 
is no petty higgling about their methods; they 
ladle out Luck not in spoonfuls but with shovels. 
The Squadron which had come so far to clean 
up the mess of Coronel was commanded by Vice- 
Admiral Sir F. C. Doveton Sturdee, who had been 
plucked out of his office chair at the Admiralty 
— he was Director of Naval Intelligence — and 
thrown up upon the quarter-deck of the Invincible. 
He was the right man for the job, a cool-headed 
scientific sailor who would make full use of the 
power and speed of his big ships and yet run no 
risk of suffering severe damage thousands of miles 
away from a repairing base. Those who criticise 
his leisurely deliberation in the action, and the 



156 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

long-range fighting tactics which dragged out the 
death agony of the Scharnhorst for three and a 
half hours and of the Gneisenau for five, forget 
that to Sturdee an hour or two of time, and a 
hundred or two rounds of heavy shell, were as 
nothing when set against the possibility of damage 
to his battle cruisers. His business was to sink 
a very capable and well-armed enemy at the 
minimum of risk to his own ships, and so he 
determined to fight at a range — on the average 
about 16,000 yards (9| land miles) — which made 
his gunnery rather ineffective and wasteful, yet 
certain to achieve its purpose in course of time. 

Just as von Spee at Coronel, having the advan- 
tage of greater speed and greater power, could 
do what he pleased with the Good Hope and Mon- 
mouth, so Sturdee with his battle cruisers could do 
what he pleased with von Spee. The Invincible 
and Inflexible could steam at twenty-eight knots 
— they were clean ships — while the Scharnhorst 
and the Gneisenau, now five months out of dock, 
could raise little more than twenty. The superior- 
ity of the English battle cruisers in guns was no 
less than in speed. Each carried eight 12-inch 
guns, firing a shell of 850 lb., while von Spee's 
two armoured cruisers were armed with eight 
8.2-inch guns, firing shell of 275 lb. Sturdee, 
with his great advantage of speed, could set the 
range outside the effective capacity of von Spee's 
guns, secure against anything but an accidental 
plunging shot upon his decks, while the light 
German 6-inch armour upon sides and barbettes 
was little protection against his own 12-inch 
armour-piercing shell. Sturdee could keep his 
distance and pound von Spee to bits at leisure. 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 157 

The "visibility" was perfect, space was unlimited, 
the Germans had no port of refuge, and from dawn 
to sunset Sturdee had sixteen hours of working 
daylight. He was in no hurry, though one may 
doubt if he expected to take so unconscionable 
a time as three and a half hours to sink the Scharn- 
horst and five hours to dispose of the Gneisenau. 
It was not that Sturdee's gunnery was bad — 
relatively, that is, to the gunnery of other ships 
or of other navies. The word bad suggests blame. 
But it was certainly ineffective. After the Falk- 
land Islands action, and after those running 
fights in the North Sea between battle cruisers, it 
became dreadfully clear that naval gunnery is 
still in its infancy. All the brains and patience 
and mechanical ingenuity which have been lavished 
upon the problem of how to shoot accurately from 
a rapidly moving platform at a rapidly moving 
object, all the appliances for range-finding and 
range-keeping and spotting, leave a margin of 
guesswork in the shooting, which is a good deal 
bigger than the width of the target fired at. The 
ease and accuracy of land gunnery in contrast 
with the supreme difficulty and relative inaccuracy 
of sea gunnery were brought vividly before me 
once in conversation with a highly skilled naval 
gunner. "Take a rook rifle," said he, "put up 
a target upon a tree, measure out a distance, sit 
down, and fire. You will get on to your target 
after two or three shots and then hit it five times 
out of six. You will be a land gunner with his 
fixed guns, his observation posts, his aeroplanes 
or kite balloons, his maps upon which he can 
measure up his ranges. Then get into a motor- 
car with your rook rifle, get a friend to drive you 



15S THE SILENT WATCHERS 

rapidly along a country road, and standing up 
try what sport you make of hitting the rabbits 
which are running and jumping about in the fields. 
That, exaggerated a bit perhaps, is sea gunnery. 
We know our own speed and our own course, 
but we don't know exactly either the enemy's 
speed or the enemy's course; we have to estimate 
both. As he varies his course and his speed — 
he does both constantly — he throws out our cal- 
culations. It all comes down to range-linding 
and spotting, trial and error. Can you be sur- 
prised that naval gunnery, measured by land 
standards, is wasteful and ineffective?" "No," 
said I, "I am surprised that j^ou ever hit at all." 



The English Squadron began to coal at half- 
past three upon that bright summer morning of 
December Sth, and the grimy operation proceeded 
vigorously until eight o'clock, when there came 
a sudden and most welcome interruption. Columns 
of smoke were observed far away to the south- 
east, and, presently, the funnels of two approaching 
vessels were made out. There were three others 
whose upper works had not yet shown above the 
horizon. Coaling was at once stopped and steam 
raised to full pressure. Never have our engineer 
staffs more splendidly justified their advance in 
official status than upon that day. Not only did 
they get their boilers and engines ready in the 
shortest possible time, but, in the subsequent 
action, they screwed out of their ships a knot or 
two more of speed than they had any right to do. 
The action was gained by speed and gun power; 
without the speed — the speed of clean-bottomed 



IN THE SOUTH 81 159 

■hips against those which! alter five montl 

sea, had become foul the power of the g 
guns could not have been fully developed. Bo, 
when w: remember Bturdee and bis masfrfr g unn ers 
arid gunnery officers in the turrets and aloft in 
t>jf; spotting tops, let tie a] o remember the master 
engineers hidden out of sight far below who gave 
to the guimerf their op portu nity. 

The battle cruiaerSi whoee presence it irae desired 
to conceal until the latest moment, poured oil 

upon their furnaces and, veiled in clouds of the 

densest smoke, awaited the rising of the pre ss ure 

gauges. In the outer harbour the light eruisers 

collected, and from her immovable DO ition upon 

the mud-banks the old Catwpm loosed a couple 

of pot shots from her big gun:-; at the distant 
German at a range of :-.ix m;!':":. Admiral Graf 
von Bpes and his merry men laughed they J 
all about the Canopus, Then, when all was 
ready, the indomitable OUugouff the Kent (< 

sister to the sunken Monmouth), and the armoured 
Carnarion Issued forth to battle. In the words 

of an eye-witness, later a prisoner, "The Germans 

laughed till their hide:-; ached." A few more 
minute-; passed, and then, from under the COVCf 
of the Smoke and the low fringe-:-; of the harbour, 

steamed grandly out the Invincible and Inflexible, 

cleared for action, their huge turret:-; fore and aft 
and upon either beam bristling with the long 
12-inch gun-, their turbines working at the fullest 
lire, the flag of Vice-Admiral Bturdee flutter- 
ing aloft. There was no more German laughter. 
Von Bpee and his officers and men were gallant 
enemies, they haw instantly the moment the 
battle cruisers issued forth, overwhelming in their 



160 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

speed and power, that for themselves and for their 
squadron the sun had risen for the last time. 
They had come for sport, the easy capture of the 
Falkland Islands, but sport had turned upon the 
instant of staggering surprise to tragedy; nothing 
remained but to fight and to die as became gallant 
seamen. And so they fought, and so they died, 
all but a few whom we, more merciful than the 
Germans themselves at Coronel, plucked from the 
cold sea after the sinking of their ships. 

The German Squadron — the two armoured 
cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, each with 
eight 8.2-inch guns, and the three light cruisers 
Niirnberg, Dresden, and Leipzig, each armed with 
ten 4.1-inch guns — made off at full speed, and 
for awhile the English Squadron followed at the 
leisurely gait for the battle cruisers of about 
twenty knots so as to keep together. It was at 
once apparent that our ships had the legs of the 
enemy, and could catch them when they pleased 
and could fight at any range and in any position 
which they chose to select. That is the crushing 
advantage of speed; when to speed is added gun 
power a fleeing enemy has no chance at all, if 
no port of refuge be available for him. In weight 
and power of guns there was no possible com- 
parison. The Invincible and Inflexible, which 
had descended from the far north to swab up the 
mess of Coronel, were at least three times as 
powerful as the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, crack 
gunnery ships though they might be. Their 
12-inch guns could shoot with ease and with 
sufficient accuracy for their purpose at a range 
beyond the full stretch of the German 8.2-inch 
weapons however deftly they might be handled. 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 161 

Their 10- inch armour upon the turrets and conning- 
tower was invulnerable against chance hits when 
closing in, and the armoured decks covering their 
inner vitals were practicably impenetrable. The 
chances of disaster were reduced almost to nothing- 
ness by Sturdee's tactics of the waiting game. 
When at length he gave the order to open fire 
he kept out at a distance which made the per- 
centage of his hits small, yet still made those 
hits which he brought off tremendously effective. 
A bursting charge of lyddite in the open may 
do little damage, even that contained in a 12-inch 
shell, but the same charge exploded within the 
decks of a cruiser is multiplied tenfold in destruc- 
tiveness. 

Presently the German Squadron divided, the 
enemy light cruisers and attendant transports 
seeking safety in flight from our light cruisers 
despatched in chase while the armoured cruisers 
held on pursued by the two battle cruisers and 
the armoured Carnarvon, whose ten guns were of 
7.5- and 6-inch calibre. The Carnarvon, light 
though she was by comparison with the battle 
cruisers, did admirable and accurate work, and 
proved in the action to be by no means a negligi- 
ble consort. There was no hurry. A wide ocean 
lay before the rushing vessels, the enemy had no 
opportunity of escape so long as the day held 
clear and fine, and the English ships could close 
in or open out exactly as they pleased. During 
most of the fight which followed the Invincible 
and Inflexible steered upon courses approximately 
parallel with those of the Germans, following them 
as they dodged and winded like failing hares, 
always maintaining that dominating position which 



162 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

in these days of steam corresponds with Nelson's 
weather gauge. It followed from their position 
as the chasers that they could not each use more 
than six guns, but this was more than compen- 
sated for by the enemy's inability to use more 
than four of his heavier guns in the Scharnhorst 
or Gneisenau. 

I have met and talked with many naval officers 
and men who have been in action during the 
present war, and have long since ceased to put a 
question which received an invariable answer. 
I used to inquire "Were you excited or sensibly 
thrilled either when going into action or after it 
had begun?" This was the substance though 
not the words of the question. One does not talk 
in that land fashion with sailor-men. The answer 
was always the same. "Excited, thrilled of 
course not. There was too much to do." An 
action at sea is glorified drill. Every man knows 
his job perfectly and does it as perfectly as he 
knows how. Whether he be an Admiral or a 
ship's boy he attends to his job and has no time 
to bother about personal feelings. Naval work 
is team work, the individual is nothing, the team 
is everything. This is why there is a certain 
ritual and etiquette in naval honours; personal 
distinctions are very rare and are never the result 
of self-seeking. There is no pot-hunting in the 
Sea Service. Not only are actions at sea free 
from excitement or thrills, but for most of those 
who take part in them they are blind. Not one 
in twenty of those who fight in a big ship see 
anything at all — not even the gun-layers, when the 
range is long and they are "following the Control." 
Calmly and blindly our men go into action, calmly 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 163 

and blindly they fight obeying exactly their 
orders, calmly and blindly when Fate wills they 
go down to their deaths. In their calmness and 
in their blindness they are the perfected fruits of 
long centuries of naval discipline. The Sea Service 
has become highly scientific, yet in taste and in 
sentiment it has changed little since the days of 
Queen Elizabeth. The English sailor, then as 
now, has a catlike hatred of dirt, and never fights 
so happily as when his belly is well filled. The 
officers and men of the battle cruisers had been 
coaling when the enemy so obligingly turned up, 
and they had breakfasted so early that the meal 
had passed from their memories. There was 
plenty of time before firing could begin. So, 
while the engineers sweated below, those with 
more leisure scrubbed the black grime from their 
skins, and changed into their best and brightest 
uniforms to do honour to a great occasion. Then 
at noon "all hands went to dinner." 



The big guns of the battle cruisers began to 
pick up the range of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau 
at five minutes to one, three hours after the chase 
had begun, when the distance from the enemy's 
armoured cruisers was some 18,000 yards, say ten 
land miles. And while the huge shots fly forth 
seeking their prey, let us visit in spirit for a few 
minutes the spotting top of the Invincible, and 
discover for ourselves how it is possible to serve 
great guns with any approach to accuracy, when 
both the pursuing and pursued ships are travelling 
at high speed upon different courses during which 
the range and direction are continually varying. 



164 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

The Invincible worked up at one time to twenty- 
nine knots (nearly thirty-four miles an hour), 
though not for long, since a lower speed was better 
suited to her purpose, and the firing ranges varied 
from 22,000 yards down to the comparatively close 
quarters of six miles, at which the Scharnhorst 
and, later, the Gneisenau were sent to the bottom. 
From the decks of the Invincible, when the main 
action opened, little could be seen of the chase 
except columns of smoke, but from the fire control 
platform one could made out through glasses the 
funnels and most of the upper works of the German 
cruisers. At this elevation the sea horizon was 
distant 26,000 yards (about 15| land miles), and 
upon the day of the Falkland Islands fight "visi- 
bility" was almost perfect. When an enemy 
ship can be seen, its distance can be measured 
within a margin of error of half of one per cent. — 
fifty yards in ten thousand; that is not difficult, 
but since both the enemy vessel and one's own 
ship are moving very fast, and courses are being 
changed as the enemy seeks to evade one's fire 
or to direct more efficiently his own guns, the 
varying ranges have to be kept, which is much 
more difficult. It follows that three operations 
have to be in progress simultaneously, of which 
one is a check upon and a correction of the other 
two. First, all the range-finders have to be kept 
going and their readings compared; secondly, the 
course and speed of one's own ship have to be 
registered with the closest accuracy and the 
corresponding speeds and courses of the enemy 
observed and estimated; thirdly, the pitching of 
one's shots has to be watched and their errors 
noted as closely as may be. All this delicate 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 163 

gunnery work is perfectly mechanical but chiefly 
human. The Germans, essentially a mechanically 
inhuman people, try to carry the aid of machinery 
farther than we do. They fit, for example, a 
gyroscopic arrangement which automatically fires 
the guns at a chosen moment in the roll of a ship. 
We fire as the roll brings the wires of the sighting 
telescopes upon the object aimed at, and can 
shoot better when a ship is rolling than when she 
is travelling upon an even keel. We believe in 
relying mainly upon the deft eyes and hands of 
our gun-layers — when the enemy is within their 
range of vision — and upon control officers up aloft 
when he is not. German gunnery can be very 
good, but it tends to fall to pieces under stress 
of battle. Ours tends to improve in action. 
Machinery is a good servant but a bad master. 

As the shots are fired they are observed by the 
spotting officers to fall too short or too far over, 
to one side or to the other, and corrections are 
made in direction and in range so as to convert a 
"bracket" into a "straddle" and then to bring 
off accurate hits. 

When, say, the shots of one salvo fall beyond 
the mark and the shots of the next come down 
on the near side, the mark is said to be "bracketed." 
When the individual shots of a salvo fall some too 
far and others too short, the mark has been 
"straddled." A straddle is a closed-in bracket. 
At long ranges far more shots miss than hit, 
and we are dealing now with ranges up to ten or 
twelve miles. The bigger the gun the bigger the 
splash made by its shell when striking the water, 
and as the spotting officers cannot spot unless 
they can clearly make out the splashes, there is 



166 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

an accuracy — an ultimate effective accuracy — in 
big guns with which smaller ones cannot compete 
however well they may be served. For, ulti- 
mately, in naval gunnery, when ships arc moving 
fast and ranges are changing continually, we 
come down to trial and error. We shoot and 
correct, correct and shoot, now and then find the 
mark and speedily lose it again, as the courses 
and speeds are changed. Unless we can see the 
splashes of the shells and are equipped with guns 
powerful enough to shoot fairly fiat — without high 
elevation — we may make a great deal of noise 
and expend quantities of shell, but we shall not 
do much hurt to the enemy. 

The Falkland Islands action was the Royal 
Navy's first experience in long-range war gunnery 
under favorable conditions of light — and it was 
rather disappointing. It revealed the immense 
gap which separates shooting in war and shooting 
at targets in time of peace. The battle cruisers 
sank the enemy, and suffered little damage in 
doing their appointed work, and thus achieved 
both the purposes which Admiral Sturdee had 
set himself and his men. But it was a wasteful 
exhibition, and showed how very difficult it is to 
sink even lightly armoured ships by gun-fire alone. 
Our shells at the long ranges set were falling 
steeply; their effective targets were not the 
sides but the decks of the Germans, which w r ere 
not more than seventy feet wide. If one reflects 
what it means to pitch a shell at a range of ten 
miles upon a rapidly moving target seventy feet 
wide, one can scarcely feel surprised that very few 
shots got fairly home. We need not accept au 
pied de la lettre the declaration of Lieutenant 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 167 

Lietzmann — a damp and unhappy prisoner — that 
the Gneisenau, shot at for five hours, was hit 
effectively only twenty times, nor endorse his 
rather savage verdict that the shooting of the 
battle cruisers was "simply disgraceful." But 
every competent gunnery officer, in his moments 
of expansive candour, will agree that the results 
of the big-gun shooting were not a little disap- 
pointing. The Germans added to our difficulty 
by veiling their ships in smoke clouds and thus, 
to some extent cancelled the day's "visibility." 

No enemy could have fought against over- 
whelming odds more gallantly and persistently 
than did von Spee, his officers, and his highly 
trained long-service men. Many times, even at 
the long ranges at which the early part of the 
action was fought, they brought off fair hits upon 
the battle cruisers. One 8.2-inch shell from the 
Scharnhorsl wrecked the Invincible's wardroom 
and smashed all the furniture into chips except 
the piano, which still retained some wires and part 
of the keyboard. Another shell scattered the 
Fleet Paymaster's money-box and strewed the 
decks with golden bullets. But it was all useless. 
Though the Invincible was the leading ship, and 
at one time received the concentrated fire of both 
the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, she did not 
suffer a single casualty. And, while she was 
being peppered almost harmlessly, her huge shells, 
which now and then burst inboard the doomed 
German vessels, were setting everything on fire 
between decks, until the dull red glow could be 
seen from miles away through the gaping holes in 
the sides. It was a long-drawn-out agony of Hell. 

Firing began seriously at 12.55 and continued, 



168 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

with intervals of rest for guns and men, till 4.16, 
when the Schamhorst sank. Three hours and 
twenty-one minutes of Hell! Through it all the 
Germans Stuck to their work, there was no thought 
of surrender; they fought so long as a gun could 
be brought to bear or a round of shell remained 
in their depleted magazines. Every man in the 
Scharnhorst was killed or drowned; the action was 
not ended when she went down and her consort 
Cnciscnau, steaming through the floating bodies 
of the poor relics of her company, was compelled 
to leave them to their fate. For nearly two hours 
longer the Cthiscnau kept up the fight. The battle 
cruisers and the smaller Carnarvon closed in upon 
her, and at a range of some six to seven land miles 
smashed her to pieces. By half-past five she was 
blazing furiously fore and aft, and at two minutes 
past six she rolled over and sank. Her guns spoke 
up to the last. As she lay upon her side her end 
was hastened by the Germans themselves, who, 
feeling that she was about to go, opened to the 
sea one of the broadside torpedo flats. She sank 
with her ensign still flying. If the whole German 
Navy could live, fight, and die like the Far Eastern 
Pacific Squadron, that Service might in time 
develop a true Naval Soul. 

Those of the crew who remained afloat in the 
water after the Cnciscnau sank were picked up 
by boats from the battle cruisers and the Carnarvon 
— we rescued 108 officers and men. Admiral 
Sturdee sent them a message of congratulation 
upon their rescue and of commendation upon their 
gallantry in battle, and every English sailor did 
his utmost to treat them as brothers of the sea. 
Officers and men lived with their captors as guests, 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 160 

not as prisoners, in wardroom and gun-room, and 
on the lower deck the English and Germans fought 
their battle over again in the best of honest fellow- 
ship. "There is nothing at all to show that we 
are prisoners of war," wrote a young German 
lieutenant to his friends in the Fatherland, express- 
ing in one simple sentence — though perhaps un- 
consciously — the immortal spirit of the English 
Sea Service. A defeated enemy is not a prisoner; 
he is an unhappy brother of the sea, to be dried 
and clothed and made much of, and to be taught 
with the kindly aid of strong drink to forget his 
troubles. 

There is little of exhilaration about a sea fight, 
such as that which I have briefly sketched. It 
seems, even to those who take part in it, to be 
wholly impersonal and wholly devilish. Though 
its result depends entirely upon the human element, 
upon the machines which men's brains have 
secreted and which their cunning hands and eyes 
direct, it seems to most of them while in action to 
have become nothing loftier than a fight between 
soulless machines. One cannot wonder. The 
enemy ship — to those few of the fighting men who 
can see it — is a spot upon the distant horizon from 
which spit out at intervals little columns of fire 
and smoke. There is no sign of a living foe. 
And upon one's own ship the attention of everyone 
is absorbed by mechanical operations — the steam 
steering gear, the fire control, the hydraulic or 
electric gun mechanism, the glowing fires down 
below fed by their buzzing air fans, the softly 
purring turbines. And yet, what now appears 
to be utterly inhuman and impersonal is in reality 
as personal and human as was fighting in the daya 



170 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

of yard-ana distances and hand-to-hand boarding. 

The Admiral who, from his armoured conning- 
tower, orders the courses and maintains the 

distances best suited to his terrible work; the Firo 
Director watching, aiming, adjusting sights with 

the minute care o( a marksman with his rifle; the 
officers at their telescopes spotting the gouts of 

foam thrown up by the bursting shells; the 
engineers intent to squeeze the utmost tally in 
revolutions out of their beloved engines; the 
stokers eaeh man rightly feeling that upon him 
and his efforts depends the sustained speed which 
alone can give mastery of manoeuvre; the seamen 
at their stations extinguishing lire caused by 
hostile shells; the gunners following with huge 
blind weapons the keen eyes directing them from 
far aloft; all these are personal and very human 
tasks. A sea light, though it may appear to be 
one between machinery, is now as always a fight 
between men. Rattles are fought and won by 
men and by the souls of men, by what they have 
thought and done in peace time as a preparation 
for war, by what they do in war as the result of 
their peace training. 

The whole art of successful war is the concentra- 
tion upon an enemy at a given moment of an 
overwhelming force and the concentration of 
that force outside the range of his observation. 
Both these things were done by the Royal Navy 
between November 6th and December 8th, 1914, 
and their fruits were the shattered remains of 
von Spec's squadron lying thousands of fathoms 
deep in the South Atlantic. But nothing which 
the Admiralty planned upon November 6th would 
have availed had not the Royal Navy designed 



r; THE SOUTH SEAS J71 

and built bo great a force of powerful ships that, 
when the far-off call aroi f> , two battle crui ers could 
be spared to travel 7,000 milee from the North 
Sea to the Falkland I lands without sensibly 
endangering the margin of safety of the Grand 
J' leet at home. 

While the Invincible and Inflexible were occupying 
the front of the battle i tags and disposing of the 
ho bile stars, the English light cruisers were enjoy- 
ing themselves in the wings in a more humble 
but not le i ui eful play. The cruiser Kent aston- 
ished everybody. She wan the lame duck of the 
Squadron, a slow old creature who could with 
ex tr e m e difficulty screw out seventeen knots, ho 
that, in the company of much faster boats, her 
armament of fourteen 6-inch guns appeared to be 
practically wa ted. Y< t thi i elderly County cruiser, 
: '> - hort of coal that her fires were fed with boats, 
ladders, doors, and officers 1 furniture, got her.. elf 
moving at over twenty-one knots, chased and 
caught the Nttomberg which ought to have been 
able to romp round her if one of her boilers had 
not been out of action and sank the German 
vessel out of hand. Afterwards }i(-r officers claimed 
with solemn oaths that she had done twenty-four 
knots, but there are heights to which my credulity 
will not soar. One is compelled on the- evidence 
to believe that she did catch the Nurriberg, but 
how she did it no one can explain, least of all, I 
fancy, her Engineer Commander himself. The 
Leipzig was rapidly overhauled by the speedy 
(Jlangow, who sank her with the aid of the Cornwall 
and so repaid in full the debt of CoroneL The 
cruiser Bristol, a sister of the Glasgow, was sent 
after the German Squadron's transports and col- 



172 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

liers, and, in company with the armed liner 
Macedonia, " proceeded," in naval language, "to 
destroy them." Out of the whole German Squad- 
ron the light cruiser Dresden (own sister to the 
Emden) alone managed to get away. She had 
turbine engines and fled without firing a shot. 
She passed a precarious hunted existence for three 
months, and was at last disposed of off Robinson 
Crusoe's Island on March 14th, 1915. The Glasgow, 
still intent upon collecting payment for her injuries, 
and our aged but active friend the Kent, were in 
at her death, which was not very glorious. I will 
tell her story in its proper place. So ended that 
most dainty operation, the wiping out of the 
German Pacific Squadron and the cleaning up 
of the Mess of Coronel. Throughout, our sailors 
had to do only with clean above-water fighting. 
There were no nasty sneaking mines or submarines 
to hamper free movement; the fast ship and the 
big gun had full play and did their work in the 
business-like convincing fashion which the Royal 
Navy has taught us to expect from it. 



[For what follows I have none but German 
evidence, yet am loth to disbelieve it. I cannot 
bring myself to conceive it possible that the dull 
Teutonic imagination could, unaided by fact, 
round off in so pretty a fashion the story of the 
Falkland Islands. My naval friends laugh at me. 
They say the yarn is wholly impossible.] 

More than a year afterwards some fishermen 
upon the barren Schleswig coast observed a little 
water-worn dinghy lying upon the sand. She 
was an open boat about twelve feet long, too frail 



IN THE SOUTH SEAS 173 

a bark in which to essay the crossing of the North 
Sea. Yet upon this little dinghy was engraved 
the name of the Nurnberg! Like a homing pigeon 
this frail scrap of wood and iron had wandered 
by itself across the world from that far-distant spot 
where its parent vessel had been sunk by the 
Kent. It had drifted home, empty and alone, 
through 7,000 miles of stormy seas. I like to 
picture to myself that Odyssey of the Niirnberg's 
dinghy during those fourteen months of lonely 
ocean travel. Those who know and love ships 
are very sure that they are alive. They are no 
soulless hulks of wood or steel or iron, but retain 
always some spiritual essence distilled from the 
personality of those who designed, built, and sailed 
them. It may be that in her dim blind way this 
fragment of a once fine cruiser, all that was left 
of a splendid squadron, was inspired to bring to 
her far-away northern home the news of a year- 
old tragedy. So she drifted ever northwards, 
scorched by months of sun and buffeted by months 
of tempest, until she came at last to rest upon 
her own arid shores. And the spirits of German 
sailors, which had accompanied her and watched 
over her during those long wanderings, must, when 
they saw her ground upon the Schleswig sands, 
have passed to their sleep content. 



CHAPTER IX 

HOW THE "SYDNEY" MET THE " EMDEN " 

Forward, each gentleman and knight! 
Let gentle Mood show generous might 

And chivalry redeem the tight! 

The Luck of the Navy is not always good. There 
are wardrooms in the Grand Fleet within which 
to mention any Joss except of the most devilish 
blackness may lead to blasphemy and even to 
blows. One can sympathise. Those who sped 
on May 31st, 1916, across 400 miles of sea and 
who, though equipped with all the paraphernalia 
of fire-directors, spotting-officers, range-fingers, 
control instruments, grizzled gun-layers and tre- 
mendous wire-wound guns, failed to get in a single 
shot at an elusive enemy, are dangerous folk to 
chaff. If to them had been vouchsafed the great 
chance which came to the Salt of the Earth and 
the Fifth B. S. there would not now be a German 
battleship afloat! Still, in face of blazing examples 
of bad Joss such as this, I will maintain that there 
are pixies sitting up aloft who have a tender regard 
for the Royal Navy and who, every now and then, 
ladle out to it toothsome morsels of unexpected, 
astounding, incredible Luck. 

For how else can one explain the action at the 
Falkland Islands? There was sheer luck in every 

174 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EM DEN 175 

detail of it, luck piled upon luck. Sturdee with 
his two battle-cruiser , raced through 7,000 miles 
of ocean, from Plymouth to Port Stanley, and 
not a whisper of his coming sped over the wirela 
to von Spec. Yet hundreds knew of Sturdee's 
mission — even I knew before he had cleared the 
English Channel. During five; weeks, from the 
Coronel battle until December 7th, the Falkland 
Islands were exposed almost helpless to a raid 
by von Spec's victorious squadron. Yet he delayed 
his coming until December 8th — the day after 
the Invincible and Inflexible had arrived to gobble 
him up. As if these two miracles were not sufficient 
— a month of silence in those buzzing days of 
enemy agents and wireless telegraphy, and von 
Spec's arrival off Port Stanley at the moment 
most dangerous for him and most convenient for 
us — the Fates worked for the Navy yet another. 
They gave to Sturdee upon December 8th, 1011, 
perfect weather, full visibility, and a quiet sea in 
a corner of ocean where rain and fog are the rule 
and clear weather almost a negligible exception. 
The Falkland Islands do not see half a dozen 
such days as that December 8th in the whole 
circuit of the year. Von Spec came and to Sturdee 
were granted a long southern summer day, perfect 
visibility, a limitless ocean of space, and a benign 
easy swell to swing the gunsights kindly upon 
their mark. It was a day that gunners pray for, 
sometimes dream of, but very rarely experience in 
battle. 

Less conspicuously but not less benignantly did 
the kindly Fates work up the scene for the destruc- 
tion of the Emden. They made all their prepara- 
tions in silence and then switched up the curtain 



176 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

at the moment chosen by themselves. In the Falk- 
land Islands action Luck interposed to perfect 
the Navy's long-laid plans and to add to the scheme 
those artistic touches of which man unaided is 
incapable. But the Sydney-Emden action was 
fortuitous, quite unplanned, flung off at a moment 
when Luck might have seemed to be wholly on 
the side of the raider. The Emden had destroyed 
70,000 tons of shipping in seven weeks and vanished 
after each exploit upon an ocean which left no 
tracks. She seemed to be as elusive and dangerous 
as the Flying Dutchman. But perhaps her com- 
mander, von Muller, a most ingenious and gallant 
seaman, had committed that offence, which the 
Athenians and Eton boys call hubris, and had 
neglected to pay due homage for the good fortune 
which was poured upon him in plenty. For the 
Fates wearied of their sport with him and with 
us, withdrew their mantle of protection, and 
suddenly delivered the Emden to the Sydney with 
that artistic thoroughness which may always be 
seen in their carefully planned work. Luck is no 
bungler, but Luck is a most jealous mistress. If 
Sturdee and Glossop are wise they will sacrifice 
their dearest possessions while there is yet time. 
The Invincible is at the bottom of the North Sea 
and the Inflexible was mined in the Dardanelles. 
The Sydney is a pretty little ship and I should 
grieve to see her suffer for her good luck of three 
years ago. 



Take a chart of the Indian Ocean and draw a 
line from Fremantle in Australia to Colombo in 
Ceylon. The middle point of this line will be seen 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 177 

to lie about fifty miles east of the Cocos-Keeling 
Islands. Now draw another line from Cocos to 
the Sunda strait, a line which will be seen* to bisect 
at right angles the Fremantle-Colombo line. After 
this exercise in Euclid examine that point without 
parts and without magnitude, fifty miles east of 
Cocos, where the tracks intersect. It is a very 
interesting point, for upon the tropical night of 
November 8th, 1914, it was being approached by 
two hostile naval forces each of which was entirely 
ignorant of the nearness of the other. Coming 
up from Australia bound for Colombo steamed a 
fleet of transports under the charge of Captain 
Silver of H.M. Australian light cruiser Melbourne. 
Upon the left of Captain Silver, and nearest to 
the Cocos Islands, was Captain Glossop in the 
sister ship Sydney, and away to the right was a 
Japanese light cruiser. Upon the line from the 
Sunda strait to the Cocos Islands was steaming 
the famous raider Emden, with an attendant 
collier, bound upon a mission of destruction there. 
The Emden crossed the head of the convoy about 
three hours before it reached the point of inter- 
section of the two tracks, and went on to demolish 
the cable and wireless station on the Islands. 
Meanwhile, wholly unconscious of the scene-setting 
upon which the Fates were busy, the convoy 
sailed on, crossed the Emden 7 s track and cut that 
vessel off from any chance of escape to the east. 
To the west the ocean stretches unbroken for limit- 
less miles. At half-past six in the morning the 
Emden appeared off the Cocos Islands and the 
watching wireless operators at once sent out a 
warning to all whom it might concern that a foreign 
warship was in sight. It greatly concerned Captain 



178 



11 1 1 : SILENT WATCHERS 




/ CEYLON 

Colombo^y 



Ncrll< Keeling I. "'.' . , 

Cocos-Keeling 1? \ 



Qa 



o c js jl jst 




HuW THE "SYDNEY" MET XUK " KMDKX." 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 179 

Silver of the Melbourne, who ordered Captain 
Glossop to proceed in the; Sydney to the Islands 
in order to investigate. The Sydney was nearest 
to the Islands, was a clean ship riot three weeks 

out of dock, was in trim for the highest possible 
speed and, though largely manned by men in 
course of training, was in charge of experienced 
officers "lent" by the Royal Navy to the Australian 
Fleet Unit. 

In (he old sailing-ship days it was more common 
than it is now for fighting ships to pass close to 
one another without detection. Whole fleets Ui ed 
then to do it in a way which now seems always 
unbelievable. The classical example is that of 
Napoleon and Nelson in June, 1798. On the night 
of June 30th-July 1st, Napoleon with a huge 
fleet of transports, escorted by Admiral Brueys' 
squadron, crossed the Gulf of Candia and reached 
Alexandria on the afternoon of the 1st. Nelson, 
who had been at Alexandria in search of his enemy, 
left on June 29th, and sailed slowly against adverse 
winds to the north. Though the French and 
British fleets covered scores of miles of sea they 
passed across one another, each without suspicion 
of the presence of the other. Nelson was very 
short of frigates. It is not remarkable that the 
British convoy and the Emden on the night of 
November 8th, 1914, should so nearly have met 
without mutual detection; what is wonderful is 
that the Emden should have chosen the day and 
hour for raiding the Cocos Islands when a greatly 
superior British force was barely fifty miles distant 
and placed by accident in a position which cut off 
all prospects of escape. It was a stroke of Luck 
for us which exactly paralleled the occasion of 



ISO THE SILENT WATCHERS 

von Spec's raid a month later upon the Falkland 

Islands. 

By seven o'clock Glossop and the Sydney were 

ready to leave upon their trip of investigation 
they had no knowledge of what was before them 
- and during the next two and a quarter hours 
they steamed at twenty knots towards the distant 
cable station. In the meantime the Emden had 
Bent a boat ashore and the work of destruction of 
the station was completed by 9.20 a.m. Every- 
thing fitted exactly into its place, for the Fates 
are very pretty workmen. The Emden knew noth- 
ing of the Sydney's coming, but as Cdossop sped 
along his wireless receivers took up the distress 
calls from Cooos. He learned that the enemy 
warship had sent a boat ashore- and then came 
interruptions in the signals which showed that 
the wireless station had been raided. Naval offi- 
cers do not get excited they have too much of 
urgency upon which to concentrate their minds 
— but to those in the Sydney must have come some 
thrills at the unknown prospect. Their ship and 
their men were new and untried in war. Their 
guns had never tired a shot except in practice. 
Before them might be the Emden or the Koniysbery 
or both together. They did not know, but as 
they rushed through the slowly heaving tropic 
sea they serenely, exactly, prepared for action. 

The light cruiser Sydney, completed in 1913 for 
the Australian Unit, is very fast and powerful. 
She is 5.600 tons, built, with the clipper bows 
and lines of a yacht, and when oil is sprayed upon 
her coal furnaces can steam at over twenty-five 
knots. She bears upon her deck eight 6-inch 
guns of the latest pattern, one forward, one aft, 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 181 

and three on either beam, so that she can fire 
simultaneously from five guns upon either broad- 
side. Her lyddite shells weigh one hundred pounds 
each. She was, and is, of the fast one-calibre 
type of warship which, whether as light cruiser, 
battle cruiser, or heavy battleship, gives to our 
Navy its modern power of manoeuvre and con- 
centrated fighting force. Speed and gun-power, 
with the simplicity of control given by guns all 
of one size, are the doctrines upon which the New 
Navy has been built, and by virtue of which it 
holds the seas. The Sydney was far more power- 
ful than the Emden, whose ten guns were of 4.1- 
inch, firing shells of thirty-eight pounds weight. 
The German raider had been out of dock in warm 
waters for at least three and a half months, her 
bottom was foul, and her speed so much reduced 
that in the action which presently began she never 
raised more than sixteen knots. In speed as in 
gun-power she was utterly outclassed. 

Let us visit the Sydney as she prepares for action 
on the morning of the fight just as she had prepared 
day after day in practice drill at sea. Before the 
foremast stands the armoured conning tower — 
exactly like a closed-in jam-pot — designed for the 
captain's use; forward of the tower rises the 
two-storeyed bridge, the upper part of which is 
the station of the gunnery control officer; upon 
the mast, some fifty feet up, is fitted a spotting 
top for another officer. This distribution of 
executive control may look very pretty and 
scientific, but Glossop, who had tested it in practice, 
proposed to fight on a system of his own. If a 
captain is cooped up in a conning tower, with the 
restricted vision of a mediaeval knight through a 



182 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

vizard, a gunnery lieutenant is perched on the 
upper bridge by the big range-finder, and another 
lieutenant is aloft in the spotting top, the diffi- 
culties of communication in a small cruiser are 
added to the inevitable confusion of a fight. So 
the armoured jam-pot and the crow's nest aloft 
were both abandoned, and Glossop placed him- 
self beside his Gunnery Lieutenant Rahilly upon 
the upper bridge with nothing between their bodies 
and the enemy's shot except a frail canvas screen. 
Accompanying them was a lieutenant in charge 
of certain instruments. At the back of the bridge 
— which measured some ten feet by eight — stood 
upon its pedestal the principal range-finder with 
a seat at the back for the operator. This con- 
centration of control upon the exposed upper 
bridge had its risks, as will presently appear, but 
is made for simplicity and for the rapid working 
both of the ship and of her guns. Another lieu- 
tenant, Geoffrey Hampden, was in charge of the 
after control station, where also was fitted a range- 
finder. When a ship prepares for action the 
most unhappy person on board is the Second in 
Command — in this instance Lieutenant-Com- 
mander John F. Finlayson (now Commander) — 
who by the rides of the Service is condemned to 
safe and inglorious, though important duties in 
the lower conning tower. Here, seeing little or 
nothing and wrapped like some precious egg in 
cotton wool, the poor First Lieutenant is preserved 
from danger so that, if his Chief be killed or dis- 
abled, he at least may remain to take over com- 
mand. 

From the upper fore bridge of the Sydney we 
can see the guns' crews standing ready behind 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 183 

their curved steel screens and note that as the 
ship cuts through the long ocean swell the waves 
break every now and then over the foVsle and 
drench the gun which stands there. At 9.15 land 
is sighted some ten miles distant and five minutes 
later a three-funnelled cruiser, recognised at once 
as the Emden, is seen running out of the port. 
Upon the Sydney a bugle blows, and then for 
twenty minutes all is quiet orderly work at Action 
Quarters. To the Emden the sudden appearance 
of the Sydney is a complete surprise. Her destruc- 
tion party of three officers and forty men are still 
ashore and must be left behind if their ship is to 
be given any, the most slender, chance of escape. 
Captain von Miiller recognises the Sydney at once 
as a much faster and more heavily gunned ship 
than his own. His one chance is to rush at his 
unexpected opponent and utilise to the utmost 
the skill of his highly trained gunners and the 
speed with which they can work their quick-firing 
guns. If he can overwhelm the Sydney with a 
torrent of shell before she can get seriously home 
upon him he may disable her so that flight will be 
possible. In rapid and good gunnery, and in a 
quick bold offensive, may rest safely; there is no 
other chance. So out he comes, makes straight 
for the Sydney as hard as he can go and gives her 
as lively a fifteen minutes as the most greedy of 
fire-eaters could desire. 

When the two cruisers first see one another they 
are 20,000 yards distant, but as both are closing 
in the range comes quickly down to 10,500 yards 
(six land miles). To the astonishment both of the 
Captain and Gunnery Lieutenant of the Sydney, 
who are together looking out from the upper fore 



184 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

bridge, von M tiller opens fire at this very long 
range for his small 4.1-inch guns and gets within 
a hundred yards at his first salvo. It is wonderful 
shooting. His next is just over and with the 
third he begins to hit. At the long range the 
Emden's shells fall steeply — at an angle of thirty 
degrees — rarely burst and never ricochet from the 
sea. They whine overhead in torrents, plop into 
the sea on all sides, and now and then smash on 
board. One reaches the upper fore bridge, passes 
within a foot of Lieutenant Rahilly's head, strikes 
the pedestal of the big range-finder, glances off 
without bursting, cuts off the leg of the operator 
who is sitting behind, and finishes its career over- 
board. If that shell had burst Glossop and his 
Gunnery Lieutenant, together with their colleague 
at the rate-of-change instrument, must have been 
killed or seriously wounded and the Second in 
Command would have been released from his 
thick steel prison. Not one of them was six feet 
distant from where the shell struck in their midst. 
The range-finder is wrecked and its operator killed, 
but the others are untouched. A few minutes 
later two, possible three, shells hit the after con- 
trol, wound everyone inside, and wipe that control 
off the effective list. 

But meanwhile the officers of the Sydney and 
their untried but gallant and steady men have 
not been idle. Their first salvo fired immediately 
after the Emden opened is much too far, their 
second is rather wild and ragged, but with the 
third some hits are made. The Sydney had for- 
tunately just secured her range when the principal 
range-finder was wrecked and the after control 
scattered, and Gunnery Lieutenant Rahilly is able 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 1*5 

to keep it by careful spotting and rate-of-change 
observations. Glossop, who has the full command 
given by superior speed, manoeuvres so as to keep 
out to about 8,000 yards, to maintain as nearly 
constant a rate of change as is possible, and to 
present the smallest danger space to the enemy. 
The Emden's first effort to close in has failed, and 
now that the Sydney's 100-pound shells begin to 
burst well on board of her the Emden's one chance 
upon which von Miiller has staked everything has 
disappeared. During the last fifteen minutes the 
Sydney was hit ten times, but afterwards not at 
all; the Emden was hit again and again during 
the long-drawn-out two hours of the hopeless 
struggle. After twenty minutes the Emden's for- 
ward funnel went and she caught fire aft. Her 
steering gear was wrecked and she became depend- 
ent upon the manipulation of her propellers, 
and the inevitable falling off in speed to about 
thirteen knots. During the early critical minutes 
of the action the Sydney had the Emden upon her 
port side, but all her casualties were suffered upon 
the starboard or disengaged side due to the steep- 
ness with which the German shells were falling. 
Once she was hit upon the two-inch side armour 
over the engine room and the shell, which this 
time burst, left a barely discernible scratch. An- 
other shell fell at the foot of a starboard gun pedestal 
in the open space behind the shield, burst and 
wounded the gun's crew but left the gun unhurt 
except for a spattering of a hundred tiny dents. 
The electric wires were not even cut. It is remark- 
able that during the whole of the action no electric 
wires in any part of the Sydney were damaged. 
As I have told both gun controls of the Sydney 



186 THE sil BNT WATCHERS 

were hit during the first few minutes though only 

the after one was put out of action; the Erndcn, 
less fortunate, had both her controls totally 
destroyed and all the officers and men within them 
killed." 

After the lapse of about three-quarters of an 
hour the Bmdsn had lost two funnels and the fore- 
mast ; she was badly on tire aft and amidships, 
so that at times nothing more than the top of the 
mainmast eould be seen amid the clouds of steam 
and smoke. Her puis, now occasionally tiring, 
gave out a short yellow flash by which they could 
be distinguished from the long dark red flames 
of the Sydney's bursting lyddite. Once she disap- 
peared so completely that the cry went up from 
the Sydney that she had sunk, but she appeared 
again, blazing, almost helpless. Glossop, who 
had been circling round to port, then drew in to 
a range of 5,500 yards — which in the absence of 
the range-finder was wrongly estimated at under 
5,000 — and determined to try a shot with a torpedo. 
It was a difficult shot as the torpedo gunner was 
obliged to set his gyroscope to a definite angle 
and then wait until the rapidly turning Emdcn 
came upon his bearing. But in spite of the diffi- 
culties it was very good; the torpedo ran straight 
for its mark and then stopped short at the distance 
of 5,000 yards for which it had been set. The 
torpedo crews, naturally enough, wanted forth- 
with to let off all their mouldies, just to show the 
gunners how the business should be done with, 
but the hard-hearted Glosstfp forbade. The 
moment after the one had been tired he swung the 
ship round to starboard, opened out his range, and 
resumed the distressful game of gun-pounding. 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 187 

The Emden also went away to starboard for about 
four miles and then von Muller, finding that his 
ship was badly pierced under water as well as on 
fire, put about again and headed for the North 
Keeling Island, where he ran aground. The Syd- 
ney followed, saw that her beaten enemy was 
irretrievably wrecked, and went away to deal 
with the Emden's collier — a captured British ship 
Buresk — which had hovered about during the 
action but upon which Glossop had not troubled 
to fire. The Emden fired no torpedoes in the 
action, for though von Muller had three left his 
torpedo flat was put out of business early in the 
fight. 

Though the Emden was beaten and done for, 
the gallantry and skill with which she had fought 
could not have been exceeded. She was caught 
by surprise, and to some extent unprepared, yet 
within twenty minutes of the Sydney 1 s appearance 
upon the sky line von Muller was pouring a con- 
tinuous rain of shell upon her at over 10,000 yards 
range and maintaining both his speed of fire and 
its accuracy until the hundred-pound shots bursting 
on board of him had smashed up both his controls, 
knocked down his foremast, and put nine of his 
ten guns out of action. Even then the one remain- 
ing gun continued to fire up to the last. The 
crew of the Sydney, exposed though many of them 
were upon the vessel's open decks — a light cruiser 
has none of the protection of a battleship — bore 
themselves as their Anzac fellow-countrymen upon 
the beaches and hills of Gallipoli. At first they 
were rather ragged through over-eagerness, but 
they speedily settled down. The hail of shell 
which beat upon them was unceasing, but they 



188 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

paid as little heed to it as if they had passed their 
lives under heavy fire instead of experiencing it for 
the first time. Upon Glossop and his lieutenants 
on the upper bridge, and in the transmission room 
below, was suddenly thrown a new and urgent 
problem. With the principal range-finder gone 
and the after-control wrecked in the first few 
minutes, they were forced to depend upon skilful 
manoeuvring and spotting to give accuracy to 
their guns. They solved their problem ambulando, 
as the Navy always does, and showed that they 
could smash up an opponent by mother wit and 
sea skill when robbed by the aid of science. It is 
good to be equipped with all the appliances which 
modern ingenuity has devised; it is still better 
to be able at need to dispense with them. 

I love to write of the cold fierce energy with 
which our wonderful centuries-old Navy goes forth 
to battle, but I love still more to record its kindly 
solicitude for the worthy opponents whom its 
energy has smashed up. Once a fight is over it 
loves to bind up the wounds of its foes, to drink 
their health in a friendly bottle, and to wish them 
better luck next time. When he had settled with 
the collier Buresk, and taken off all those on board 
of her, Glossop returned to the wreck of the Emden 
lying there helpless upon the North Keeling Island. 
The foremast and funnels were gone, the brave 
ship was a tangle of broken steel fore and aft, 
but the mainmast still stood and upon it floated 
the naval ensign of Germany. Until that flag had 
been struck the Sydney could not send in a boat 
or deal with the crew as surrendered prisoners. 
Captain Glossop is the kindliest of men, it went 
against all his instincts to fire at that wreck upon 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EM DEN 189 

which the forms of survivors could be seen moving 
about, but his duty compelled him to force von 
Miiller into submission. For a quarter of an hour 
he sent messages by International code and Morse 
flag signals, but the German ensign remained 
floating aloft. As von Miiller would not surrender 
he must be compelled, and compelled quickly and 
thoroughly. In order to make sure work the 
Sydney approached to within 4,000 yards, trained 
four guns upon the Emden, and then when the 
aim was steady and certain smashed her from end 
to end. The destruction must have been frightful, 
and it is probable that von Miiller's obstinacy cost 
his crew greater casualties than the whole previous 
action. These last four shots did their work, the 
ensign came down, and a white flag of surrender 
went up. It was now late in the afternoon, the 
tropical night was approaching, and the Sydney 
left the Emden to steam to Direction Island some 
fifteen miles away and to carry succour to the 
staff of the raided cable and wireless station. Be- 
fore leaving he sent in a boat and an assurance 
that he would bring help in the morning. 

Although the distance from Direction Island, 
where the action may be said to have begun, to 
North Keeling Island, where it ended, is only 
fifteen miles the courses followed by the fighting 
vessels were very much longer. They are shown 
upon the von Miiller-Glossop plan, printed on 
page 193. The Emden was upon the inside and 
the Sydney — whose greatly superior speed gave 
her complete mastery of manoeuvre — was upon 
the outside. The Emden's course works out at 
approximately thirty-five miles and the Sydney's 
at fifty miles. The officers and men who are 



190 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

fighting a ship stand, as it were, in the midst of 
a brilliantly lighted stage and may receive more 
than their due in applause if one overlooks the 
sweating engineers, artificers, and stokers who, 
hidden far below, make possible the exploits of 
the stars. At no moment during the whole action, 
though ventilating fans might stop and minor 
pipes be cut, did the engines fail to give Glossop 
the speed for which he asked. His success and 
his very slight losses — four men killed and sixteen 
wounded — sprang entirely from his speed, which, 
when required, exceeded the twenty-five knots for 
which his engines were designed. When, therefore, 
we think of Glossop and Rahilly, who from that 
exposed upper bridge were manoeuvring the ship 
and directing the guns, we must not forget Engineer 
Lieutenant-Commander Coleman and his half- 
naked men down below, who throughout that 
broiling day in the tropics nursed those engines 
and toiled at those fires which brought the guns 
to fire upon the enemy. 

True to his promise Glossop brought the Sydney 
back to the Emden at eleven o'clock on the morning 
of November 10th, having borrowed a doctor and 
two assistants from Direction Island, and then 
began the long task — which the Navy loves only 
less than actual battle — of rescue and care for the 
sufferers by its prowess. North Keeling Island 
is an irregular strip of rock, boulders and sand 
almost entirely surrounding a large lagoon. It is 
studded with cocoanut palms and infested with 
red land-crabs. An unattractive spot. The Emden 
was aground upon the weatherside and the long 
rollers running past her stern broke into surf before 
the mainmast. Lieutenant R. C. Garsia, going 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 191 

out to her in one of the Sydney's boats, was hauled 
by the Germans upon her quarter-deck, where he 
found Captain von Miiller, whose personal luck 
had held to the last, for he was unwounded. Von 
Miiller readily gave his parole to be amenable to 
the Sydney's discipline if the surviving Germans 
were transhipped. The Emden was in a frightful 
state. She was burned out aft, her decks were 
piled with the wreck of three funnels and the fore- 
mast, and within her small space of 3,500 tons, 
seven officers and 115 men had been killed by high- 
explosive shell and splinters. Her condition may 
be suggested by the experience of a warrant officer 
of the Sydney who, after gravely soaking in her 
horrors, retailed them in detail to his messmates. 
For two days thereafter the warrant officers' mess 
in the Sydney lost their appetites for meat: one 
need say no more! The unwounded and slightly 
wounded men were first transferred to the boats 
of the Sydney and Buresk, but for the seriously 
wounded Neil-Robertson stretchers had to be 
used so that they might be lowered over the side 
into boats. This had to be done during the brief 
lulls between the rollers. By five o'clock the 
Emden was cleared of men and Captain von Miiller 
went on board the Sydney, which made at once 
for the only possible landing place on the island 
in order to take off some Germans who had got 
ashore. To the surprise of everyone it was then 
discovered that several wounded men, including 
a doctor, had managed to reach the shore and 
were somewhere among the scrub and rocks. 
Night was fast coming on, the wounded ashore 
were without food and drink — except what could 
be obtained from cocoanuts — and were cut off 



192 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

from all assistance except that which the Sydney 
could supply. The story of how young Lieutenant 
Garsia drove in through the surf after dark — at 
the imminent hazard of his whaler and her crew 
— hunted for hours after those elusive Germans, 
was more than once hopelessly "bushed," and 
finally came out at the original landing place, is 
a pretty example of the Navy's readiness to spend 
ease and risk life for the benefit of its defeated 
enemies. In the morning the rescue party of 
English sailors and unwounded Germans, supplied 
with cocoanuts and an improvised stretcher made 
of bottom boards and boathooks, at last discovered 
the wounded party, which had not left the narrow 
neck of land opposite the stranded Emden. Lieu- 
tenant Schal of the Emden, who was with them, 
eagerly seized upon the cocoanuts and cut them 
open for the wounded, who had been crying for 
water all night and for whom he had not been able 
to .find more than one nut. The wounded German 
doctor had gone mad the previous afternoon, in- 
sisted upon drinking deeply of salt water >, and so 
died. The four wounded men who remained alive 
were laboriously transferred to the Sydney and the 
dead were covered up with sand and boulders. 
"A species of red land-crab with which the ground 
is infested made this the least one could do." 
The reports of Navy men may seem to lack grace, 
but they have the supreme merit of vivid simplicity. 
That short sentence, which I have quoted, makes 
us realise that waterless crab-haunted night of 
German suffering more vividly than a column of 
fine writing. 

All was over, and the packed Sydney headed 
away for her 1,600-mile voyage to Colombo. 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 193 



N. Keeling I. 
ashore "%% 



.Sydney after Collier 




Sydney 
-15 A.M. 



Horebur4hl.OA\^' 

C/ S) Direction!. 



/ Sydney's Course 

•-- -Emden's Course 

S,,S 2 Ac. Positions of "Sydney" 

E|, E 2 Ac. Corresponding positions of "Emden** 

Scale of Sea Mites • 



-i 



O \ 2 3 A 5 6 769 10 1113 131413 
THE " fiTDNBT-BMDBar" ACTION. 



194 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

To her company of about 400 she had added 11 
German officers and 200 men, of whom 3 officers 
and 53 men were wounded. The worst cases 
were laid upon her fo'c'sle and quarter-deck, the 
rest huddled in where they could. It was a trying 
voyage, but happily the weather was fine and 
windless, the ship as steady as is possible in the 
Indian Ocean, and the Germans well behaved, 
Von Ml'iller and Glossop, the conquered and 
conqueror, the guest and the host, became friendly 
and mutually respecting during those days in 
the Sydney. I like to think of those two, in the 
captain's cabin, putting their heads together over 
sheets of paper and at last evolving the plan of 
the Sydney-Emden action which is printed here. 
Von Miiller did the greater part of it, for, as Glossop 
remarked, ''he had the most leisure." A cruiser 
skipper with 400 of his own men on board and 200 
prisoners, is not likely to lack for jobs. To the 
von Muller-Glossop plan I have added a few 
explanatory words, but otherwise it is as finally 
approved by those who knew most about it. 

Some single-ship actions remain more persistently 
in the public memory and in the history books 
than battles of far greater consequence. They are 
easy to describe and easy to understand. One 
immortal action is that of the Shajinon and the 
Chesapeake; another is that of the Sydney and 
the Emden. It was planned wholly by the Fates 
which rule the Luck of the Navy, it was fought 
cleanly and fairly and skilfully on both sides, 
and the faster, more powerful ship won. I like 
to picture to myself the Sydney heading for 
Colombo, bearing upon her crowded decks the 
captives of her bow and spear, her guns and her 



HOW THE SYDNEY MET THE EMDEN 195 

engines, not vaingloriously triumphant, but humbly 
thankful to the God of Battles. To her officer! 
and crew their late opponents were now guests 
who could discuss with them, the one with the 
other, the incidents of the short fierce fight dis- 
passionately as members of the same profession, 
though serving under different flags, just as Glossop 
and von Muller discussed them in the after cabin 
under the quarter-deck when they bent their heads 
over their collaborated plan. 



CHAPTER X 

FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 

Since I have not been so foolish as to set myself 
the task of writing a history of the Naval War, 
I am not hampered by any trammels of chrono- 
logical sequence. It is my purpose to select those 
events which will best illustrate the workings of 
the British Naval Soul, and to present them in 
such a manner and in such an order as will make 
for the greatest simplicity and force. Naval war- 
fare, viewed in the scattered detail of operations 
taking place all over the world, is a mightily con- 
fusing study; but, if it be analysed and set forth 
in its essential features, the resultant picture has 
the clarity and atmosphere of the broad sea horizon 
itself. There is nothing in naval warfare, as 
waged by the Royal Navy, of that frightful con- 
fusion and grime and clotted horror which has 
become inseparable from the operations of huge 
land forces. Sailors live clean lives — except when 
the poor fellows are coaling ship! — and die clean 
deaths. They have the inestimable privilege of 
freedom both in the conception of their plans and 
in their execution. The broad distinction between 
land and sea service was put clearly to me once 
by a Marine officer who had known both. "At 
sea," he observed, "one at least lives like a gentle- 

195 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 197 

man until one is dead." It must be very difficult 
to live or to feel like a gentleman when one is 
smothered in the mud of Flanders' trenches and 
has not had a bath for a month. 

Although, as I have shown, the Grand Fleet at 
the outbreak of war was, in effective battle power, 
of twice the strength of its German opponents, no 
time was lost in adding largely to that margin of 
strength. Mines, with which Germany recklessly 
sowed the seas whenever she could evade the 
watchful eyes of our cruisers and destroyers, and 
the elusive and destructively armed submarine, 
were perils not lightly to be regarded by our great 
ships. We took the measure of both these dangers 
m due course, but in the early months of war they 
caused a vast amount of apprehension. In addi- 
tion, therefore, to dealing directly with these 
perils the whole power of our shipyards, gun 
shops, and armour-rolling mills was turned to 
the task of increasing the available margin of 
battle strength so as to anticipate the possibility 
of serious losses. 

And here we had great advantages over Germany. 
We not only had a far longer and far greater ex- 
perience, both in designing and constructing ships 
and guns, but we had a larger number of yards 
and shops where battleships and battle cruisers 
could be completed and equipped. Throughout 
the fourteen years of the peace contest Germany 
had always been far behind us in design, in speed 
of construction, and in the volume of output. 
We built the first Dreadnought in little more than 
fifteen months — by preparing all the material in 
advance and taking a good deal from other ships 
— but our average time of completing the later 



198 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

models was rather more than two years apieee. 
The exalted super-battleships occupied about two 
years and three months before they were in com- 
mission. Germany — which so many fearful folk 
seriously look upon as superhuman in efficiency — 
never built an ordinary Dreadnought in peace 
time in less than two years and ten months, and 
always waited for the chance of copjdng our 
designs before she laid one down. It is reasonable 
to suppose that in the early days of war the German 
yards and gun shops worked much more rapidly 
than during the peace competition, but as our 
own quicker rate of construction was also enor- 
mously accelerated it is in the highest degree 
unlikely that our speed of war output was ever 
approached by our opponents. We had at the 
beginning far more skilled labour and, what is 
more important, far more available skilled labour. 
Since it was only by slow degrees that we enlisted 
a vast army for Continental service while Germany 
had to mobilise the whole of hers at the beginning 
of hostilities and to call upon the millions of 
untrained men, the drain upon our manhood was 
for a long time far less than the drain upon hers. 
As time went on labour became scarce with us, 
even for naval work, but it could never have 
been so scarce as with the Germans when after 
their immense losses they were driven to employ 
every possible trained and untrained man with the 
colours. 

We had yet another advantage. In August, 
1914, as the result of the far-seeing demands of 
the British Admiralty we had twice as many 
great ships under construction in this country 
as Germany had in the whole of her North Sea 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 199 

and Baltic yards. This initial advantage was an 
enormous one, since it meant that for eighteen 
months Germany could make no effective efforts 
to catch up with us, and that at the end of that 
period we should inevitably have in commission 
an increase in battle strength more than twice as 
great as hers. The completed new lead thus 
secured early in 1916, added to the lead obtained 
before the outbreak of war, then made our position 
almost impregnable. We were thus free to con- 
centrate much of our attention upon those smaller 
vessels — the destroyers, patrol boats, steam drifters, 
fast submarine catchers and motor boats — which 
were urgently needed to cope with Germany's 
attacks upon the world's merchant ships. 

Early in 1915, six months after the outbreak of 
War, our shipyards and gun shops had turned 
out an extraordinary quantity of finished work. 
There had been some loss in skilled labour through 
voluntary enlistment in the Army, but the men 
that were left worked day and night shifts in the 
most enthusiastic and uncomplaining spirit. The 
war was still new and the greatness of the Empire's 
emergency had thrilled all hearts. Some cool- 
ness came later, as was inevitable — poor human 
nature has its cold fits as well as its hot ones — 
and there was even some successful intriguing by 
enemy agents in the North, but the great mass of 
British workmen remained sound at heart. The 
work went on, more slowly, a little less enthusi- 
astically, but it went on. 

During the first six months we completed the 
great battle cruiser Tiger, a sister of the Lion 
with her eight 13.5-inch guns, and the sisters 
fought together with those others of their class — 



-200 vu\: SILEN r WATCHERS 

the Queen .Van/ and Princess RoyaJ — in the Dogger 
Hank action in January. 1915, We took over 

and completed two battleships which were building 
for Turkey and under their now names of Erin 
and AytnoottrJ they Joined Jellicoe in the north. 
The second of those great vessels ravished from 
the enemy had fourteen L2-inoh guns ^sot in 

seven turrets) and the other ten lo.o-iuoh. We 
OOmpleted two vast super-ships, the QtlCtffl l\Ii:ah'th 

EOld another like to her. both with a speed of twenty- 
tive knots and eight lo-ineh guns apieee. The 

battle cruisers, Indomitable and 1 nJefatitjable, speed- 
ing home from the Mediterranean, had raised the 
Hat tie Cruiser strength in the North Sea to seven 
tine vessels of which four carried 13.5-inch guns 
and the three others l_-ineh weapons. Even 
though the Inflexible and Invincible were still 
away they were not yet back from tight ing that 

perfect little action in which the German Pacific 

Squadron had been destroyed we had a battle 
cruiser force against which the rival German vessels 
could not tight and hope to remain atloat. 

After six months, therefore, Jellieoe had received 

four new battleships two of them by far the 
most powerful at that time atloat and IVatty 
had been joined by three battle eruisers. one of 
them quite new. The Grand Fleet was the 
stronger for six months of work by seven ships. 

As compared with our increased strength of 

seven ships (five quite new), Germany had managed 
to muster no more than three. She completed two 
battleships of a speed of twenty and a half knots, 
each carrying ten l'2-ineh guns. Neither of these 
vessels were more powerful than our original Dread- 
nought elass and they were not to be compared with 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 201 
our King George V% Orions or Iron Dukefl and 

itill letM witJj our Queen Elizabeths. That Ger- 
many should, rii monthi after the war began, 
be completing battleship* of a claea irhich with ua 
had been far surpassed fully four yean earlier 
is the beat possible illustration of her poverty in 
naval brains and foresight. Germany had also 
completed one battle cruiser, the Derjjlinger, of 
twenty-seven knots speed and with eight 12-inch 
guns, which in her turn was not more powerful than 
our Invincibles of five years earlier date. The 
Derffiinger could no more have stood up to our new 
Tiger than the two battleships |USt completed 
by our enemies could have fought for half an 
hour with our two new Queen Elizabeths. So 
great indeed had our superiority become as early 
in the war as the beginning of 1915 that we could 
without serious risk afford to release two or 
three battle cruisers for the Mediterranean and 
to escort the Canadian and Australian contingents 
aero:.:-; the seas, and to send to the Mediterranean 
the mighty Queen Elizabeth to flesh her maiden 
guns upon the Turkish defences of the Dardanelles. 
Ship guns are not designed to fight with land forts, 
and though the Queen Elizabeth' a 15-inch shells, 
weighing over 1,000 lbs. apiece, may not have 
achieved very much against the defences of the 
Narrows, their smashing power and wonderful 
accuracy of control were fully demonstrated. 

Inconclusive though it was in actual results, 
the Dogger Bank action of January, 1915, proved 
to be most instructive. It showed clearly three 
things: first, that no decisive action could be 
fought by the big ships in the southern portion of 
the North Sea— there was not sufficient room to 



202 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

complete the destruction of the enemy. Secondly, 

it demonstrated the overwhelming power of the 
larger gun and the heavier shell. Thanks to the 
skill of the Navy's engineering staffs it was also 
found that the actual speed of OUT battle ernisers 
was quite a knot faster than their designed speed, 
and since no similar advance in speed was noticeable 
in the ease of the fleeing German ernisers it could 
be concluded that the training of our engineers 
was fully as superior to theirs as was unquestionably 
the training of our long-serviee seamen and gunners 
superior to that of their short -service erews. As 
the tleets grew larger our superiority in personnel 
tended to become more marked. We had an 
almost unlimited maritime population upon which 
to draw for the few thousands whom we needed — 
before the war the professional Navy was almost 
wholly recruited from the seaboards of the South 
of England we had still as our reserves the east 
and west coasts of England and Scotland. But 
Germany, even before the war, could not man 
her tleets from her scanty resources of men from 
her seaboards, and more and more had to depend 
upon partially trained landsmen. If one adds 
to this initial disadvantage in the quality of the 
German sea recruits, that other disadvantage of 
the cooping up of her fleets — sea training can only 
bo acquired fully upon the open seas — while ours 
were continually at work, patrolling, cruising, 
practising gunnery, and so on, it will be seen that 
on the one side the personal efficiency of officers 
and men, upon which the value of machines wholly 
depends, tended continually to advance, while 
upon the German side it tended as continually 
to recede. It was the old story. Nelson's sea- 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 203 

worn fleet, though actually Smaller in numbers arid 
weaker in guns than those of the French and 
Spaniards at Trafalgar, was bo infinitely mperior 
to its opponents in trained officers arid men that 
the result of the battle was never for a moment 

iu doubt. 

At the time of the Dogger Hank action, which 
confirmed our Navy in its growing conviction that 
Speed and Power of guns were of supreme impor- 
tance, the Germans had no guns afloat larger in 
calibre than 12-inch and seven of the ships in 
their first line were armed with weapons of 11 
inches* They then mustered in all twenty big 
ship:- which they could place in the battle line 

against our available thirty-two, and of their 

twenty not more than thirteen were of a class com- 
parable even with our older Dreadnoughts. They 
had nothing to touch our twelve Orions, King 
Georges, Iron Dukes, all with 13.5-inch guns, and 

upon a supreme eminence by themselves stood 
the two new Queen Elizabeths which, if need be, 
could have disposed of any half-dozen of the weaker 
German battleships. Jn the Jutland Battle four 
Queen Elizabeths — : Bar ham, Warspite, Valiant and 
Malaya — fought for an hour and more the whole 
High Seas Fleet. It is 00 wonder, then, that the 
Germans did not come out far enough for Jelliooe 
to get at there. And yet there were silly people 
re who still prattled about the inactivity of 
the Royal Navy and asked one another "what it 
was doing." 

There is a good story told of the scorn of the 
professional seamen afloat for the querulous; 
civilians ashore. When the Dion was summoned 
to lead the battle cruisers in the Dogger Bank 



204 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

action she was lying in the Forth undergoing some 
slight repairs. As she got up steam a gang of dock- 
yard mateys, at work upon her, pleaded anxiously 
to be put ashore. They had no stomach for a battle. 
But there was no time to worry about their feel- 
ings; they were carried into action with the ship, 
and when the shots began to fly they were con- 
temptuously assured by the grizzled old sea dogs, 
that they were in for the time of their lives. "You 

wanted to know," said they, "what the b y 

Navy's doing and now you're going to see." 

While the power of the Grand Fleet dominated 
the war at sea, some thirty supply ships and 
transports safely crossed the English Channel 
every day, and troops poured into Britain and 
France from every part of our wide-flung Empire. 
But for that silent, brooding, ever-expanding 
Grand Fleet, watching over the world's seas from 
its eyries on the Scottish coast, not a man or a 
gun or a pound of stores could have been sent to 
France, not a man could have been moved from 
India or Australia, Canada or New Zealand. But 
for that "idle" Grand Fleet the war would have 
been over and Germany victorious before the 
summer and autumn of 1914 had passed into winter. 
During the war sea power, as always in naval 
history, has depended absolutely upon the power 
in men, in ships, and in guns of the first battle 
line. 

At the beginning of 1915, in addition to the 
completed ships which I have already mentioned, 
Great Britain had under construction three ad- 
ditional Queen Elizabeths — Malaya, Barham, and 
Valiant — all of twenty-five knot speed and carry- 
ing eight 15-inch guns apiece. She had also on 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 203 

the stocks in various stages of growth five Royal 
Sovereign Battleships designed for very heavy 
armour, with a speed of from twenty-one to twenty- 
two knots, and to be equipped with eight 15-inch 
guns each. 



It will be seen how completely during the war 
the Royal Navy had "gone nap" on the ever 
faster ship and the ever bigger gun. Calculations 
might be partially upset by weather and visibility 
— as they were in the Jutland Battle — but even 
under the worst conditions speed and gun power 
came triumphantly by their own. Our fast and 
powerful battle cruisers, and our four fast and 
more powerful Queen Elizabeths — the name ship 
was not present — could not on that day of low 
visibility choose their most effective ranges, but 
the speed and power of the battle cruisers 
enabled them to outflank the enemy while the 
speed and hitting power of the Barham, Valiant, 
Warspite and Malaya held up the whole of the 
German High Seas Fleet until Jellicoe with his 
overwhelming squadrons could come to their 
support. Even under the worst conditions of 
light, speed and gun power had fully justified 
themselves. 

Let us for a moment consider what are the 
advantages and disadvantages of the bigger and 
bigger gun; the advantages of speed will be 
obvious to all. To take first the disadvantages. 
Big guns mean weight, and weight is inconsistent 
with speed. The bigger the gun, the heavier it 
is, the heavier its mountings, its turrets, and its 
ammunition. Therefore in order that weight may 



206 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

bo kept down and high speed attained, the ships 
which carry big guns must carry fewer guns than 

those which are more lightly armed. The Orions, 
K.ti. Fives, and Iron Pukes each bear ten 
i;>.o-ineh guns within their turrets, hut the battle 
cruisers of which the Lion is the flagship, built 
for speed, can carry no more than eight. The 

Queen Elisabeth battleships, designed to carry 
15-inch guns and to have a speed of twenty-five 

knots, mount, eight guns only against the ten of 
the earlier and more lightly armed super- 1 "head- 
noughts. Speed and weight being inconsistent, 
increase in speed and increase in size of guns can 
only be reconciled by reducing the number of 
guns carried. The fewer the 4 guns carried, the 
fewer the salvos that can be tired at an enemy 
during a fixed time even if the rate of tire of the 
big guns can be kept si 1 * high as that of the smaller 
ones. When opposing ships are moving fast upon 
divergent courses, ranges are continually varying 
and the difficulty of making effective hits is very 
great indeed. The elaboration of checks and 
controls, which are among the most cherished of 

naval gunnery secrets, are designed to increase the 

proportion of hits to misses which must, always 
be small even when the light is most favourable. 
If the heavy gun were no more accurate than the 
light one, then the small number oi guns carried 
and the reduced number of salvos, would probably 
annul the benefit derived from the greater smashing 
power of the heavier shell when it did hit an enemy. 
The ever-expanding gun has, therefore, disadvan- 
tages, notable disadvantages, but as we shall see 
they are far more than outweighed by its great and 
conspicuous merits. 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 207 

The first overwhelming advantage of the big gun 
is the gain in accuracy. It is far more accurate 
than the lighter one. As the fighting range in- 
creases so does the elevation of a gun, needed to 
reach an object within the visible limits of the 
horizon, sensibly increase. But the bigger the 
gun and the heavier its shell, the flatter becomes 
its trajectory. And a flat trajectory — low eleva- 
tion — means not only more accurate shooting, 
but a larger danger zone for an enemy ship. At 
24,000 yards (twelve; sea miles) a 12-inch shell is 
falling very steeply and can rarely be pumped 
upon an enemy's deck, but a 15-inch shell is still 
travelling upon a fairly flat path which makes it 
effective against the sides and upper works of a 
ship as well as against its deck. The 15-inch shell 
thus has the bigger mark. It also suffers less from 
deflection and, what is more important, maintains 
its speed for a much longer time than a lighter 
shell. Increased weight means increased momen- 
tum. When the 15-inch shell gets home upon 
its bigger mark at a long range it has still speed 
and weight (momentum) with which to penetrate 
protective armour. When it docs hit and penetrate 
there is no comparison in destructiveness between 
the effect of a 15-inch shell and one of twelve inches. 
The larger shell is nearly two and a half times as 
heavy as the smaller one (1,960 lbs. against 850), 
and the power of the bursting charge of the big 
shell is more than six times that of the smaller 
one. Far-distant ships, big ships, can be destroyed 
by 15-inch shells when, even if occasionally hit 
by one of twelve inches, they would be little more 
than peppered. The big gun therefore gives to 
our Navy a larger mark, greater accuracy arising 



208 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

from the lower trajectory, and far greater destruc- 
tive hitting power in comparison with the lighter 
guns carried by most of the German battleships. 
But the advantages of the big gun do not end 
here. Gunnery, in spite of all its elaboration of 
checks and controls, is largely a matter of trial 
and error. All that the checks and controls are 
designed to do is to reduce the proportion of errors; 
they cannot by themselves ensure accurate shoot- 
ing. Accuracy is obtained through correcting the 
errors by actual observation of the results of shots. 
This is called "spotting." When shells are seen 
to fall too short, or too far, or too much to one 
side or the other, the error in direction or elevation 
is at once corrected. But everything depends 
upon exact meticulous spotting, an almost in- 
credibly difficult matter at the long ranges of 
modern sea fighting. Imagine oneself looking for 
the splash of a shell, bursting on contact with the 
sea ten or more miles away, and estimating just 
how far that splash is short or over or to one side 
of the object aimed at. It will be obvious to any- 
one that the position of a big splash can be gauged 
more surely than that of a small one, and that the 
huge splash of the big shell, which sends up a 
column of water hundreds of feet high, can be 
seen and placed by spotting officers who would be 
quite baffled if they were observing shots from 
12-inch weapons. In this respect also, that of 
spotting results, the big gun with its big shell, 
greatly assists the elimination of inevitable errors 
and increases the proportion of effective hits to 
misses. If then we get from bigger guns a higher 
proportion of hits, and a much greater effective- 
ness from those hits, then the bigger gun has 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 209 

paid a handsome dividend on its cost and has 
more than compensated us for the reduction in 
its numbers. Where the useful limit will be 
reached one cannot say, nothing but experience 
in war can decide, but the visible horizon being 
limited to about fifteen sea miles, there must come 
a stage in gun expansion when increase in size, 
accuracy, and destructiveness will cease to com- 
pensate for smallness of numbers. And the limit 
will be more quickly reached when during an 
action the light does not allow the big gun to use 
its accuracy at longer ranges to the fullest advan- 
tage. 



Although one's attention is apt to be absorbed 
by the great ships of the first battle line, the 
ultimate Fount of naval Power, a Navy which 
built only vast battleships and cruisers would be 
quite unable to control the seas. A navy's daily 
work does not consist of battles. For the main 
purposes of watching the seas, hunting submarines, 
blockading an enemy, and guarding the com- 
munications of ourselves and our Allies, and also 
for protecting our big ships against submarines 
and other mosquito attacks, we needed vast 
numbers of light cruisers, patrol boats, destroyers, 
armed merchant cruisers, steam drifters and so 
on, and these had to be built or adapted with as 
great an energy as that devoted to turning out 
the monsters of the first battle line. The con- 
struction of light cruisers and destroyers — the 
cavalry of the seas — kept pace during 1915 and 
1916 with that of the big fighting ships, while the 
turning out of the light fast craft essential for 



210 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

hunting down enemy submarines, far surpassed 
in speed and other building operations. At the 
beginning of the war we had 270 light mosquito 
vessels; at the end of 1917 we had 3,500! 

Nothing like the tremendous activity in warship 
building during 1915 has ever been seen in our 
country. Mercantile building was to a large extent 
suspended, labour was both scarce and dear, 
builders could not complete commercial contracts 
at the prices named in them, the great yards 
became "controlled establishments" with priority 
claims both for labour and material. Conse- 
quently every yard which could add to the Navy's 
strength, whether in super-battleships or cruisers, 
destroyers or in the humble mine sweeper, were 
put on to war work. The Clyde, typical of the 
ship-building rivers, was a forest of scaffolding 
poles from Fairfield to Greenock within which 
huge rusty hulls — to the unaccustomed eye very 
unlike new vessels — grew from day to day in the 
open almost with the speed of mushrooms. A trip 
down the teeming river became one of the sights 
of the city on the Clyde and, though precautions 
were taken to exclude aliens, the Germans must 
have known with some approach to accuracy the 
numbers and nature of the craft which were under 
construction. What was going on in the Clyde 
during that year of supreme activity, when naval 
brains were unhampered by Parliament or the 
Treasury, was also going on in the Tyne, at Barrow 
and Birkenhead, in the Royal Dockyards — every- 
where day and night the Navy was growing at a 
speed fully three times as great as in any year in 
our history. 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 211 

Twenty-two months after war broke out, in 
May of 1916, Jellicoe's battle line had been strength- 
ened during the previous twelve months by the 
addition of no less than seven great vessels. Three 
more Queen Elizabeths were finished and so 
were three Royal Sovereigns, and in addition a fine 
battleship, which had been building in England for 
Brazil, was taken over and completed. She was 
named the Canada, had twenty-three knots of 
speed, and was designed to carry ten 14-inch guns. 
There were thus available in the North Sea, 
allowing for occasional absences, from thirty-eight 
to forty-two great ships of the battle line, of 
which no fewer than eight carried 15-inch guns 
of the very latest design. This huge piling up 
of strength was essential not only to provide 
against possible losses but to ensure that, in 
spite of all accidents, an immense preponderance 
of naval power would always be available should 
Germany venture to put her fortunes to the hazard 
of battle. And accidents did occur. The coast 
lights had all been extinguished and ships at sea 
cruising at night were almost buried in darkness. 
As time went on it became more and more certain 
that a Battle of the Giants could have but one 
result. 

I have now carried the story of naval expansion 
down to the time of the Jutland Battle — May 31st, 
1916 — and will show by how much our paper 
strength had increased between August 4th, 1914, 
and that date, and how much of that strength 
was available when the call for battle rang out. 
It happened that none of our battle cruisers was 
away upon overseas enterprises, so that we were 
in good circumstances to meet the call. There 



212 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

had been added to the Fleets one battle cruiser, 
the Tiger, with 13.5-inch guns, five Queen Eliza- 
beth battleships with 15-inch guns, three Royal 
Sovereign battleships with 15-inch guns {Royal 
Sovereign, Royal Oak and Revenge), the Erin 
battleship with 13.5-inch guns, the Canada battle- 
ship with 14-inch guns, and the Agincourt battle- 
ship with fourteen 12-inch guns. At the beginning 
of the war our total strength in battleships and 
battle cruisers of the Dreadnought and later more 
powerful types was thirty-one, so that on May 31st 
we had in and near the North Sea a full paper 
total of forty-two ships of the battle line. 

But the Royal Navy which is always at work 
upon the open seas can never have at any one 
moment its whole force available for battle. 
The squadrons composing the Fleets were, how- 
ever, exceedingly powerful, far more than sufficient 
for the complete destruction of the Germans had 
they dared to fight out the action. As the battle 
was fought the main burden fell upon thirteen 
only of our ships — Beatty's four Cat battle cruisers 
assisted by the New Zealand and Indefatigable, 
Hood's three battle cruisers of the Invincible class, 
and Evan-Thomas's four Queen Elizabeth battle- 
ships. Jellicoe's available main Fleet of twenty- 
five battleships, including two Royal Sovereigns 
with 15-inch guns, the Canada with 14-inch guns, 
and twelve Orions, K.G. Fives and Iron Dukes 
with 13.5-inch guns, which was robbed of its fought- 
out battle by the enemy's skilful withdrawal, 
was almost sufficient by itself to have eaten up 
the German High Seas Fleet. 

During the battle we lost the Queen Mary with 
13.5-inch guns, and the Invincible and Inde- 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 213 

fatigable with 12-inch guns, all of which were 
battle cruisers. So that after the action our total 
battle cruiser strength had declined from ten to 
seven, while our battleship strength was unim- 
paired. 



It is not easy to be quite sure of what the Ger- 
mans had managed to do during those twenty- 
two months of war. I have given them credit 
for completing every ship which it was possible 
for tnem to complete. They were too fully occupied 
with building submarines to attack our merchant 
ships, too fully occupied with guns and shells for 
land fighting, and too much hampered in regard 
to many essential materials by our blockade, to 
be able to effect more than the best possible. 
Rumour from time to time credited them with 
the construction of "surprise" ships carrying 
17-inch guns, but nothing unexpected was revealed 
when the clash of Fleets came on May 31st, 1916. 
Huge new battleships and huge new guns take us 
at the very least fifteen months to complete at 
full war pressure — most of them nearer two years 
— and the German rate of construction, even when 
unhampered by a blockade and the calling to the 
army of all available men, has always been much 
slower than ours. The British Admiralty does 
not work in the dark and doubtless knew fully 
what the Germans were doing. 

If we credit the Germans with their best possible 
they might have added, by May, 1916, four 
battleships and two battle cruisers to their High 
Seas Fleet as it existed early in 1915. One of 
the battleships was the Salamis, which was building 



J 1 1 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

at Stettin for Greece when the war broke out. 
She was designed for speed of twenty-three knots, 
and to carry ten 14-inch guns. The other three 
battleships were copies of our Queen Elizabeths, 
though slower by about four knots. They were 
to have been equipped with eight 15-ineh guns, 
though Germany had not before the war managed 
to make any naval guns larger than 12-inch. 
The battle cruisers (Hindenburg and Liiizow) 
were vessels of twenty-seven knots with eight 
12-inch guns, not to be compared with our Cats 
and no better than our comparatively old class of 
Invincibles. 

The story of the Salamis and its 14-inch guns 
forms a very precious piece of war history. The 
guns for this Greek battleship had been ordered in 
America., a country which has specialised in guns 
of that calibre. But when Germany took over the 
ship the guns had not been delivered at, Stettin, 
and never were delivered. They had quite another 
destination and employment. Our Admiralty in- 
terposed, in its grimly humorous way, bought the 
guns in America, brought them over to this country, 
and used the weapons intended for the Salamis to 
bombard the Germans at Zeebruggo and the Turks 
in Gallipoli. One may speculate as to which 
potentate was the more irritated by this piece of 
poetic justice — the Kaiser in Berlin or his brother- 
in-law "Tino" in Athens. 

At their utmost, therefore, the Germans could 
not have added more than five vessels to their 
first line (they had lost one battle cruiser), thus 
raising it at the utmost to twenty-five battleships 
and cruisers, as compared with our maximum of 
forty-two much more powerful and faster ships. 



FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 215 

Four of their battleships were the obsolete Nassaus 
with twelve 1 1-inch guns and two of their battle 
cruisers (Mollke and oeydlitz) were also armed with 
11-inch gun s. If a suece ful fight with our Grand 
Fleet was hopeless in August, 1014, it was still 
more hopeless in May, 1916. We had not doubled 
our lead in actual numbers but had much more 
than doubled it in speed and power of the ve 
available for a battle in the North Sea. In gun 
power we had nearly twice Germany's strength at 
the beginning; we had not far from three times 
her effective strength by the end of May of 1010. 
It is indeed probable; that Germany was not so 
strong in big ships and guns as I have here 
reckoned. She did not produce so many in the 
Jutland Battle. I can account for five battle 
cruisers a/ id sixteen battleships (excluding pre- 
Dreadnoughts) making twenty-one in all. I have 
allowed her, however, the best possible, but long 
before the year 1010 it must have been brought 
bitterly home to the German Sea Command that 
by no device of labour, thought, and machinery 
could they produce great ships to range in battle 
with ours. We had progressed from strength to 
strength at so dazzling a speed that we could not 
possibly be overtaken. Had not the hare gone to 
sleep, the tortoise could never have come up with 
it — and the British hare had no intention of sleep- 
ing to oblige the German tortoise. There is every 
indication that Germany soon gave up the contest 
in battles;}] ips and put her faith in super-sub- 
marines, and in Zeppelins, the one to scout and 
raid, and the other to sink merchant vessels and 
so between them either to starve or terrify England 
into seeking an end of the war. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE CRUISE OF THE " GLASGOW" 

Part I. — Rio to Coronel 

(July 27th to Nov. 1st, 1914) 

Everyone has heard of the light cruiser Glasgow, 
how she fought at Coronel, and then escaped, 
and is now the sole survivor among the warships 
which then represented Great Britain and Germany; 
how she fought again off the Falkland Islands, 
and with the aid of the Cornwall sank the Leipzig; 
how after many days of weary search she discovered 
the Dresden in shelter at Juan Fernandez, and 
with the Kent finally brought that German cruiser 
to a last account. These things are known. But 
of her other movements and adventures between 
the declaration of war in August of 1914 and that 
final spectacular scene in Cumberland Bay, Juan 
Fernandez, upon March 14th, 1915, nothing has 
been written. It is a very interesting story, and 
I propose to write it now. I will relate how she 
began her fighting career as the forlorn solitary 
representative of English sea power in the South 
'Atlantic, and how by gradual stages, as if endowed 
with some compelling power of magnetic attrac- 
tion, she became the focus of a British and German 
naval concentration which at last extended over 

216 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 217 

half the world. This scrap of a fast light cruiser, 
of 4,800 tons, in appearance very much like a large 
torpedo-boat destroyer, with her complement of 
370 men, worthily played her part in the Empire's 
work, which is less the fighting of great battles 
than the sleepless policing of the seas. The battle- 
ships and battle cruisers are the fount of power; 
they by their fighting might hold the command 
of the seas, but the Navy's daily work in the 
outer oceans is done, not by huge ships of the 
line, but by light cruisers, such as the Glasgow, 
of which at the outbreak of the war we had far too 
few for our needs. 

In July, 1914, the Glasgow was the sole repre- 
sentative of British sea power upon the Atlantic 
coast of South America. She had the charge of 
our interests from a point some 400 miles north of 
Rio, right down to the Falkland Islands in the 
cold south. She was a modern vessel of 4,800 
tons, first commissioned in 1911 by Captain Marcus 
Hill, and again in September, 1912, by Captain John 
Luce, and the officers and men who formed her 
company in July nearly four years ago, when the 
shadow of war hung over the world. She was well 
equipped to range over the thousands of miles of sea 
of which she was the solitary guardian . Her turbine 
engines, driving four screws, could propel her at 
a speed exceeding twenty-six knots (over thirty 
miles an hour) when her furnaces were fed with 
coal and oil ; and with her two 6-inch and ten 4-inch 
guns of new pattern she was more than a match 
for any German light cruiser which might have 
been sent against her. 

Upon July 27th, 1914, while lying at Rio de 
Janeiro her captain received the first intimation 



218 THE SILENT W.V1VIIFKS 

that the strain in Europe might result in war 
between England and Germany. Upon July 
29th the warning became more urgent, and upon 
July 31st the activity of the German merchant 

ships in the harbour showed that they also had 
been notified of the imminence of hostilities. They 
loaded coal and stores into certain selected vessels 
to their utmost capacity, and clearly purposed 
to employ them as supply ships for any of their 
cruisers which might be sent to the South Atlantic. 
At that time there were, as a matter of fact, no 
German cruisers nearer than the east coast of 
Mexico. The Karlsruhe had just como out to 
relieve the Dresden, which had been conveying 
refugees of the Mexican Revolution to Kingston, 
Jamaica. Thence she sailed for Haiti, met there 
the Karlsruhe, and made the exchange of captains 
on July 27th. Both these cruisers were ordered 
to remain, but a third German cruiser in Mexican 
waters, the Strassburg, rushed away for home and 
safely got back to Germany before war was declared 
on August 4th. Thus the Dresden and Karlsruhe 
were left, and over against them in the West 
Indies lay Roar- Admiral Cradock with four 
"County" cruisers — Suffolk, Essex, Lancaster, and 
Berwick (sisters of the Monmouth) — and the fast 
cruiser Bristol, a sister of the Glasgow. Though 
the Glasgow, lying alone at Rio, had many anxieties 
— chiefly at first turning upon that question of 
supply which governs the movements of war ships 
in the outer seas — she had no reason to expect an 
immediate descent of the Dresden and Karlsruhe 
from the north. Cradock could look after them 
if they had not the good luck to evade his attentions. 
Upon August 1st, the Glasgow was cleared for 



THE CRUJ ,L 01 THE GLASGOW 21<j 



■■ ■- ■■ '-'■ \ 




/; 



:</ p/ //.,< 






Failed W 

• v 






Tuz cuvum oi thj: " cla m 



220 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

war, and all luxuries and superfluities, all those 
things which make life tolerable in a small cruiser, 
were ruthlessly cast forth and put into store at Rio. 
She was well supplied with provisions and am- 
munition, but coal, as it always is, was an urgent 
need — not only coal for the immediate present, 
but for the indefinite future. For immediate 
necessities the Glasgow bought up the cargo of a 
British collier in Rio, and ordered her captain 
to follow the cruiser when she sallied forth. Upon 
August 3rd, the warnings from home became 
definite, the Glasgow coaled and took in oil till her 
bunkers were bursting, made arrangements with 
the English authorities in Rio for the transmission 
of telegrams to the secret base which she proposed 
to establish, and late in the evening of August 4th, 
crept out of Rio in the darkness with all lights 
out. During that fourth day of August the pass- 
ing minutes seemed to stretch into years. The 
anchorage where the Glasgow lay was in the outer 
harbour, and she was continually passed by Ger- 
man merchant steamers crowding in to seek the 
security of a neutral port. War was very near. 
Captain Luce had already selected a secret 
base, where he hoped to be able to coal in shelter 
outside territorial waters. His collier had been 
ordered to follow as soon as permitted, and he 
headed off to inspect the barren rocks, uninhabited 
except by a lighthouse-keeper, which were to be 
his future link with home. His luck held, for the 
first ship he encountered was a big English steamer 
bound for Rio with coal for the Brazilian railways. 
In order to be upon the safe side, he commandeered 
this collier also, and made her attend him to his 
base. There, to his relief, he found that shelter 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 221 

from the surf could be found, and that it was 
possible to use the desolate spot as a coaling base 
and keep the supply ships outside territorial waters. 
He used it then and afterwards; so did the other 
cruisers, Good Hope and Monmouth, which came 
out to him, so also did that large squadron months 
later which made of this place a rendezvous and 
an essential storehouse on the journey to the 
Falklands and to the end of von Spee. We were 
always most careful to keep on the right side of 
the Law. 

I will not give to this base of the Glasgow its 
true name; let us call it the Pirates' Lair, and 
restore to it the romantic flavour of irresponsible 
buccaneering which I do not doubt that it enjoyed 
a century or so earlier. In the Glasgow's day it 
mounted a lighthouse and an exceedingly in- 
quisitive keeper whom German Junkers would 
have terrorised, but whom the kindly English, 
themselves to some extent trespassers, left un- 
harmed to the enjoyment of his curiosity. He, 
lucky man, did not know that there was a war on. 

Realise, if you can, the feelings of the officers 
and men of this small English cruiser lying isolated 
from the world in her Pirates' Lair. Their impro- 
vised base, not far from the main trade routes, 
might at any moment have been discovered — as 
indeed it was before very long; it was the territory 
of a neutral country, a country most friendly 
then and afterwards, but bound to observe its 
declaration of neutrality. They knew that coal 
and store ships from England would be sent out, 
but did not know whether they would arrive. 
They were in wireless touch with the British repre- 
sentatives at Rio, Pernambuco, and Montevideo, 



222 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

but authentic news came in scraps intermingled 
with the wildest rumour. They, or rather their 
captain, had to sort the grains of essential fact 
from the chaff of fiction. As the month of 
August unfolded, their news of the war came 
chiefly from German wireless, and those of us 
who lived through and remember those early 
weeks of war also remember that the news from 
enemy sources had no cheerful sound. For some 
weeks they were free from anxiety for supplies, 
provided that their base could be retained, yet 
the future was blank. I do not think that they 
worried overmuch; the worst time they had 
lived through was during those few days in Rio 
before war broke out, and those days immediately 
afterwards, when they were seeking those corners 
of their Lair least exposed to gales and surf. Very 
often coaling was impossible; more often it was 
both difficult and dangerous. 

It may seem strange that for many weeks — 
until well into September — the Glasgow heard 
nothing of Cradock and his West Indies Squadron. 
Yet it was so. Cradock in the Suffolk had on 
August 5th met the Karlsruhe coaling at sea, and 
signalled to the fast Bristol to look after her. The 
Bristol got upon the chase and fired a shot or two, 
but, speedy though she was, the Karlsruhe ran 
away from her and was seen no more and heard of 
no more until she began her ravages upon steamers 
to the South of Pernambuco. Cradock, thinking 
she had gone north, and moreover having charge 
of the whole North Atlantic trade on its western 
side, became farther and farther separated from 
the Glasgow, and even went so far away as Halifax. 
Meanwhile the Dresden slipped down and entered 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 223 

the Glasgow's sea area on August 9th, though her 
movements were not j^et known. On the 13th 
Captain Luce learned that the Monmouth was com- 
ing out to him under a captain who was his junior, 
so that upon himself would still rest the responsi- 
bility for the South Atlantic. He was now begin- 
ning to get some news upon which he could act, 
and already suspected that the Dresden or the 
Karlsruhe, or both, had broken away for the south. 
He could hear the Telefunken wireless calls of the 
Dresden to her attendant colliers from somewhere 
in the north a thousand miles away. During his 
cruises from the Lair he was always on the look out 
for her, and once, on the 16th, thought that he had 
her under his guns. But the warship which he 
had sighted proved to be a Brazilian, and the 
thirst of the Glasgow's company for battle went 
for a while unslaked. The Dresden, for which the 
Glasgow was searching, had coaled at the Rocas 
Islands, there met the Baden, a collier of twelve 
knots, carrying 5,000 tons of coal, and together 
the two vessels made for the south and remained 
together until after the Falkland Islands action 
had been fought. The Dresden picked up a second 
collier, the Preussen, and set her course for the 
small barren Trinidad Island, another old Pirates' 
Lair some 500 miles from that of the Glasgow, at 
which she in her turn established a temporary base. 
At one moment the Dresden and Glasgow were not 
far apart, the wireless calls sounded near, yet they 
did not meet. This was on the 18th, when the 
Glasgow was coaling at her base, and two days 
before she went north to join up with the Monmouth 
off Pernambuco. 

This journey to the north coincided in time with 



•224 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the Dresden's passage to Trinidad Island, so that 
by the 20th the two cruisers were again a thousand 
miles apart, but with their positions reversed. 
While the Glasgow had been going up, the Dresden 
had been going south and east. For awhile we 
will leave the Dresden, which after spending two 
days under the lee of Trinidad Island went on her 
way to the south, drawing farther and farther 
away from the Glasgow and more and more out of 
our picture. Her movements were from time to 
time revealed by captures of British ships, of 
which the crews were sent ashore. Her captain, 
Ludecke, at no time made a systematic business 
of preying upon merchant traffic and upon him 
rests no charge of inhumanity. It may be that 
commerce raiding and murder did not please him; 
it may be that he was under orders to make his 
way at the leisurely gait of his collier Baden — he 
left the Preussen behind at Trinidad Island — 
towards the Chilian coast, and the ultimate meeting 
with von Spee. 

At sea off Pernambuco on August 20th, the 
Glasgow met the Monmouth, which had been com- 
missioned on August 4th, mainly with naval 
reservists, and hastily despatched to the South 
Atlantic. Rumour still pointed to the presence 
of the Dresden in the vicinity, and it seemed likely 
that she might meditate an attack upon our 
merchant shipping in the waters afterwards greatly 
favoured by the Karlsruhe. The two English 
cruisers remained in the north for a week, hearing 
much German wireless, which was that of the 
Karlsruhe, and not of the Dresden. On the night 
of the 27th the armed liner Otranto heralded her 
approach, and on the following day the Glasgow 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 223 

met her at the Rocas Islands. Captain Luce had 
now progressed from the command of one cruiser 
to the control of quite a squadron, three ships. 
Already the concentration about the small form 
of the Glasgow had begun. 

The bigness of the sea and the difficulty of finding 
single vessels, though one may be equipped with 
all the aids of cable and wireless telegraphy, will 
begin to be realised. I have told how the Dresden 
passed the Glasgow on the 18th. She had been 
at the Rocas Islands on the 14th. The Karlsruhe, 
too, had been at the Rocas Islands on the 17th. 
She, also, had come south, though Cradock, with 
his squadron, was hunting for her in the north 
up to the far latitudes of Halifax. The two 
German cruisers, which had seemed so far away 
from the Glasgow when she was at Rio calculating 
possibilities on August 1st, had both evaded the 
West Indies squadron and penetrated into her 
own slenderly guarded waters. 

Upon August 30th the Glasgow, Monmouth, and 
Otranto were back at their Pirates' Lair, which 
they could not leave for long, since it formed their 
rather precarious base of supply, and there they 
learned that the Dresden had sunk the British 
steamer Holmwood far to the south off Rio Grande 
do Sul and must be looked after at once, since 
she might have it in mind to raid our big shipping 
lines with the River Plate. Here on the 31st 
they learned also of the action in the Heligoland 
Bight, and of the German invasion of France, and 
of the retreat from Mons. The land war seemed 
very far off, but very ominous to those Keepers 
of the South Atlantic in their borrowed base upon 
a foreign shore thousands of miles away. 



226 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

My readers, especially those who are the more 
thoughtful, may ask how the Glasgow was able 
with a clear conscience to hie away to the north 
and leave during all those weeks our big shipping 
trade to Brazil, Uruguay, and the Argentine 
uncovered from the raiding exploits of all the 
German liners lying there which might have issued 
forth as armed commerce raiders. The answer 
is that none of the German liners had any guns. 
The spectre of concealed guns which might upon 
the outbreak of war be mounted, proved to be 
baseless. The German liners had no guns, not 
even the Cap Trafalgar, sunk later, September 
14th, off Trinidad Island by the Carmania. The 
Cap Trafalgar's guns came from the small German 
gunboat Ebcr, which had arranged a meeting with 
her at this unofficial German base. The project 
of arming the Cap Trafalgar was quite a smart one, 
but, unfortunately for her, the first use to which 
she put her borrowed weapons was the last, and 
she went down in one of the most spirited fights 
of the whole war. The Carmania had come down 
from the north in the train of Rear-Admiral 
Cradock. 

At the beginning of September the Glasgow and 
the Monmouth shifted down south, in the hope of 
catching the Dresden at work off the River Plate. 
There they arrived on the 8th, but found no prey, 
though rumours- were many, and unrewarded 
searches as many. The Otranto came down to 
join them, and down also came the news that 
Cradock in his new flagship, the Good Hope, sent 
out to him from England, was also coming to take 
charge of the operations. Upon September 11th 
the Dresden was reported to be far down towards 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 227 

the Straits of Magellan and for the time out of 
reach, so the Glasgow's squadron returned to its 
northern Lair and the junction with the Good Hope. 
From Cradock the officers learned that the Cornwall 
and Bridal, with the Carmania and Macedonia, 
had arrived on the station, and that the old battle- 
ship Canopus was coming out. At the beginning 
of the war there had been one ship only in the 
South Atlantic, the Glasgow; now there were 
no fewer than five cruisers and three armed liners, 
and a battleship was on the way. One ship had 
grown into eight, was about to grow into nine, 
and before long was destined to become the focus 
of the most interesting concentration of the whole 
war. 

We have now reached September 18th, by which 
date the Dresden was far off towards the Pacific. 
She reached an old port of refuge for whalers 
near Cape Horn, named Orange Bay, on the 5th, 
and rested there till the 16th. At Punta Arenas 
she had picked up another collier, the Santa Isabel, 
and, accompanied by her pair of supply vessels 
passed slowly round the Horn. At the western 
end of the Magellan Straits she met with the 
Pacific liner Ortega, which, though fired upon and 
called to stop, pluckily bolted into a badly charted 
channel and conveyed the news of the Dresden's 
movements to the English squadron, which for 
awhile had lost all trace of her. 

It was not yet clear to Cradock, who was now 
in command of the Southern Squadron — to dis- 
tinguish it from the Northern Squadron, which 
presently consisted of the armoured cruiser Car- 
narvon (Rear-Admiral Stoddart), the Defence, the 
Cornwall, the Kent, the Bristol, and the armed 



228 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

liner Macedonia — it was not yet clear that the 
Dresden was bound for the Pacific, and a rendezvous 
with von Spee. It seemed more probable that her 
intention was to prey upon shipping; off the Straits 
of Magellan. In order to meet the danger, he 
set off with the Good Hope, Monmouth, Glasgoiv, 
and the armed liner Otranto to operate in the far 
south, employing the Falkland Islands as his base. 
The Glasgow's Lair of the north now remained for 
the use of Stoddart's squadron. 

In the light of after-events one cannot but feel 
regret that the old battleship Canopiis was attached 
to the Southern Squadron — Cradock's — instead of 
the armoured cruiser Defence, a much more useful 
if less powerfully armed vessel. The Defence was 
comparatively new, completed in 1908, had a 
speed of some twenty-one to twenty-two knots, and 
was more powerful than either the Scharnhorst 
or the Gneisenau. The three sisters, Defence, 
Minotaur, and Shannon, had indeed been laid 
down as replies to the building of the Scharnhorst 
and Gneisenau, and carried four 9.2-inch guns and 
ten 7.5-inch as against the eight S.2-inch and six 
G-inch guns of the German cruisers. 

I have reached a point in my narrative when it 
becomes necessary to take up the story from the 
German side, and to indicate how it came about 
that five cruisers, which at the beginning of the 
war were widely scattered, became concentrated 
into the fine hard-fighting squadron which met 
Cradock at Coronel. The permanent base of the 
Seharnhorst and Gneisenau was Tsing-tau in China, 
but it happened that at the end of July, 1914, they 
were more than 2,000 miles away in the Caroline 
Islands. The light cruisers Numberg and Leipzig 



TJJJ; CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 22V 

were upon the western coast of Mexico, and, as 
I have already told, the Dresden was off the eastern 
coast of Mexico. The Emden, which does riot 
concern us, was at Tsing-tau. The Scharnhorst 

and (Jneisenau were kept out of China waters by 
the Japanese fleets and hunted for and chased 

to Fiji by the Australian Unit. On September 
22nd von Spec bombarded Tahiti, in the Society 

Islands, at the moment when the Dresden, having 
safely passed through the Atlantic, was creeping 
up the Chilian coast and the Numberg and Leipzig 
were coming down from the north. All the German 
vessels had been ordered to concentrate at Easter 
Island, a small remote convict settlement belonging 
to Chili and lost in the Pacific far out (2,800 miles) 
to the west of Valparaiso. 

While, therefore, Cradock and his Southern 
Squadron were steering for the Falkland Islands 
to make of it a base for their search for the Dresden, 
von Spec's cruisers were slowly concentrating upon 
Easter Island. There was no coal at the Falk- 
lands — they produce nothing except sheep and 
the most abominable weather on earth — but it 
was easy for us to direct colliers thither, and to 
transform the Islands into a base of supplies. 
The Germans had a far more difficult task. All 
through the operations which I am describing, 
and have still to describe, we were possessed of 
three great advantages. We had the coal, we had 
the freedom of communications given by ocean 
cables and wireless, and we had the sympathy of 
all those South American neutrals with whom we 
had to deal. Admiral von Spee and his ships 
were all through in great difficulties for coal, and 
would have failed entirely unless the German ships 



230 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

at South American ports had run big risks to seek 
out and supply him. He was to a large extent 
cut off from the outside world, for he had no cables, 
and received little information or assistance from 
home. The slowness of his movements, both before 
and after Coronel, may chiefly be explained through 
his lack of supplies and his ignorance of where we 
were or of what we were about to do. 

It is comparatively easy for me now to plot out 
the movements of the English and German vessels, 
and to set forth their relative positions at any date. 
But when the movements were actually in progress 
the admirals and captains on both sides were very 
much in the dark. Now and then would come a 
ray of light which enabled their imagination and 
judgment to work. Thus the report from the 
Ortega that she had encountered the Dresden with 
her two colliers at the Pacific entrance of the 
Magellan Straits showed that she might be bound 
for some German rendezvous in the Pacific Ocean. 
A day or two later came word that the Scharnhorst 
and Gneisenau had bombarded Tahiti, and that 
these two powerful cruisers, which had seemed 
to be so remote from the concern of the South 
Atlantic Squadron, were already half-way across 
the wide Pacific, apparently bound for Chili. It 
was also, of course, known that the Leipzig and 
Niirnberg were on the west coast of Mexico to 
the north. Any one who will take a chart of the 
Pacific and note the positions towards the end of 
September of von Spee, the Dresden, and the Niirn- 
berg and Leipzig, will see that the lonely dot marked 
as Easter Island was pretty nearly the only spot 
in the vast stretch of water towards which these 
scattered units could possibly be converging. At 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 231 








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232 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

least so it seemed at the time, and, in fact, proved 
to be the case. The Schamhorst and Gneisenau 
reached Easter Island early in October, the Niini- 
berg turned up on the 12th, and hit or upon the 
same day the Dresden arrived with her faithful 
collier the Baden. Upon the 14th down came the 
Leipzig accompanied by colliers carrying 3,000 
tons of coal. The German concentration was 
complete; it had been carried through with very 
considerable skill aided by no less considerable 
luck. The few inhabitants of the lonely Easter 
Island, remote from trade routes, cables, and 
newspapers, regarded the German squadron with 
complete indifference. They had heard nothing 
of the world war, and were not interested in foreign 
warships. The island is rich in archaeological 
remains. There happened to be upon it a British 
scientific expedition, but, busied over the relics 
of the past, the single-minded men of science did 
not take the trouble to cross the island to look at 
the German ships. They also were happy in their 
lack of knowledge that a war was on. 

I have anticipated events a little in order to 
make clear what was happening on the other side 
of the great spur of South America while Admiral 
Stoddart's squadron was taking charge of the 
Brazilian, Uruguayan, and upper Argentine coasts, 
and Admiral Cradock, with the Good Hope, Glasgow, 
Monmouth, and Otranto — followed by the battle- 
ship Canopus — were pressing to the south after 
the Dresden. Stoddart's little lot had been swept 
up from regions remote from their present con- 
centration. The Carnarvon had come from St. 
Vincent, the Defence from the Mediterranean, 
where she had been Troubridge's flagship in the 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 233 

early days of the war; the Kent had been sent 
out from England, and the Cornwall summoned 
from the West Coast of Africa. The Bristol, as 
we know, was from the West Indies and her fruit- 
less hunt for the elusive Karlsruhe. The South 
Atlantic was now in possession of two considerable 
British squadrons, although two months earlier 
there had been nothing of ours carrying guns except 
the little Glasgow. 

After the news arrived from the Ortega about the 
Dresden's movements, Cradock took his ships 
down to Punta Arenas, and thence across to Port 
Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, where he was 
joined by the Canopus, a slow old ship of some 
thirteen to fourteen knots, which had straggled 
down to him. I have never been able to reconcile 
the choice of the old Canopus, despite her for- 
midable 12-inch guns, with my sense of what 
was fitting for the pursuit and destruction of 
German cruisers with a squadron speed of some 
twenty-one knots. From Port Stanley the Glasgow 
and Monmouth were despatched round the Horn 
upon a scouting expedition which was to extend 
as far as Valparaiso. Already the Southern 
Squadron was beginning to suffer from its remote- 
ness from the original Pirates' Lair of the Glasgov). 
The Northern Squadron, collected from the corners 
of the earth, were receiving the supply ships first 
and skimming the cream off their cargoes before 
letting them loose for the service of their brethren 
in arms to the south. It was all very natural and 
inevitable, but rather irritating for those who had 
now to make the best of the knuckle end of the 
Admiralty's joints. 

The trip round the Horn of the Glasgow and 



234 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

Monmouth was very rough indeed; the English 
cruisers rolled continually gunwhale under, and 
had they chanced to encounter the Dresden — which 
was not then possible, for she was well up the 
Chilian coast — neither side could have fired a shot 
at the other. At Orange Bay, where they put in, 
they discovered evidence of the recent presence 
of the Dresden in rather a curious way. It had 
long been the custom of vessels visiting that remote 
desolate spot to erect boards giving their names 
and the date of their call. Upon the notice board 
of the German cruiser Bremen, left many months 
before, was read in pencil, partially obliterated by 
a cautious afterthought, the words "Dresden, 
September 11th, 1914." 

During the early part of October, the two 
cruisers Glasgow and Monmouth worked up the 
Chilian coast and reached Valparaiso about October 
17th. It was an expedition rather trying to the 
nerves of those who were responsible for the safety 
of the ships. Perhaps the word "squirmy" will 
best describe their feelings. Already the German 
concentration had taken place at Easter Island to 
the west of them; they did not positively know 
of it, but suspected, and felt apprehensive lest 
their presence in Chilian waters might be reported 
to von Spee and themselves cut off and overwhelmed 
before they could get away. Coal and provisions 
were running short, the crew were upon half 
rations, and any imprudence might be very severely 
punished. 

During October the Glasgow and Monmouth 
were detached from the Good Hope, and it was 
not until the 2Sth that Cradock joined up with 
them at a point several hundred miles south of 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 235 

Coronel, whither they had descended for coal and 
stores after their hazardous northern enterprise. 
Here also was the Olranto, but the Canopus, 
though steaming her best, had been left behind 
by the Good Hope, and was, for all practical pur- 
poses, of no account at all. She was 200 miles 
away when Coronel was fought. On October 28th, 
after receiving orders from Cradock, the Glasgow 
left by herself bound north for Coronel, a small 
Chilian coaling port, there to pick up mails and 
telegrams from England. The Glasgow arrived off 
Coronel on the 29th, but remained outside patrol- 
ling for forty-eight hours. The German wireless 
about her was very strong indeed, enemy ships were 
evidently close at hand, and at any moment might 
appear. They were indeed much nearer and more 
menacing than the Glasgow knew, even at this 
eleventh hour before the meeting took place. 
On October 26th Admiral von Spee was at Masa- 
fuera, a small island off the Chilian coast, on the 
27th he left for Valparaiso itself, and there on the 
31st he learned of the arrival in the port of Coronel 
of the English cruiser Glasgow. The clash of 
fighting ships was very near. 

On October 31st the Glasgow entered the harbour 
of Coronel, a large harbour to which there are two 
entrances, and a rendezvous off the port had been 
arranged with the rest of the squadron for No- 
vember 1st. Her arrival was at once notified to 
von Spee at Valparaiso. The mails and telegrams 
were collected, and at 9.15 on the 1st the Glasgow 
backed out cautiously, ready, if the Germans were 
in force outside, to slip back again into neutral 
waters and to take the fullest advantage of her 
twenty-four hours' law. She emerged seeing noth- 



236 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

ing, though the enemy wireless was coming loudly, 
and met the Good Hope, Monmouth, and Otranto 
at the appointed rendezvous some eighty miles 
out to sea. Here the mails and telegrams were 
transferred to Cradock by putting them in a 
cask and towing it across the Good Hope's bows. 
The sea was rough, and this resourceful method 
was much quicker and less dangerous than the 
orthodox use of a boat. Cradock spread out his 
four ships, fifteen miles apart, and steamed to 
the north-west at ten knots. Smoke became 
visible to the Glasgow at 4.20 p.m., and as she 
increased speed to investigate, there appeared two 
four-funnelled armoured cruisers and one light 
cruiser with three funnels. Those four-funnelled 
ships were the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and 
until they were seen at that moment by the Glasgow 
they were not positively known to have been on 
the Chilian coast. To this extent the German 
Admiral had taken his English opponents by 
surprise. "When we saw those damned four 
funnels," said the officers of the Glasgow, "we knew 
that there was the devil to pay." 

I have already told the story of the Coronel 
action and I will not tell it again. Von Spee held 
off so long as the sun behind the English gave 
them the advantage of light, and did not close in 
until the sun had set and the yellow afterglow 
made his opponents stand out like silhouettes. 
He could see them while they could not see him. 
During the action, the light cruiser Glasgow, with 
which I am mainly concerned, had a very unhappy 
time. The armed liner Otranto cleared off, quite 
properly, and the Glasgow, third in the line, was 
exposed for more than an hour to the concentrated 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 237 

fire of the 4.1-inch guns of both the Leipzig and 
Dresden, and afterwards, when the Good Hope had 
blown up and the Monmouth been disabled, for 
about a quarter of an hour to the 8.2-inch guns of 
the Gneisenau. Her gunnery officers could not 
see the splashes of their own shells, and could not 
correct the ranges. When darkness came down 
it was useless to continue firing blindly, and worse 
than useless, since her gun flashes gave some 
guidance to the enemy's gunners. At the range 
of about 11,000 yards, a long range for the German 
4.1-inch guns, the shells were falling all around 
very steeply, the surface of the sea was churned 
into foam, and splinters from bursting shells rained 
over her. It is a wonderful thing that she suffered 
so little damage and that not a single man of her 
company was killed or severely wounded. Four 
slight wounds from splinters constituted her total 
tally of casualties. At least 600 shells, great and 
small, were fired at her, yet she was hit five times 
only. The most serious damage done was a big 
hole between wind and water on the port quarter 
near one of the screws. Yet even this hole did 
not prevent her from steaming away at twenty- 
four knots, and from covering several thousand 
miles before she was properly repaired. I think 
that the Glasgow must be a lucky ship. After the 
Good Hope had blown up and the Monmouth, 
badly hurt, was down by the bows and turning 
her stern to the seas, the Glasgow hung upon her 
consort's port quarter, anxious to give help and 
deeply reluctant to leave. Yet she could do 
nothing. The Monmouth was clearly doomed, and 
it was urgent that the Glasgow should get away to 
warn the Canopus, then 150 miles away and pressing 



238 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

towards the scene of action, and to report the 
tragedy and the German concentration io the 

Admiralty at homo. During thai anxious waiting 

time, when the enemy's shells were still falling 
thickly about her, the soa. to the Glasgow's com- 
pany, looked very, very cold! At last, when the 

moon was coming up brightly, and further delay 

might have made escape impossible, the Glasgow 
sorrowfully turned to the west, towards the wide 

Pacifio spaees, and dashed off at full speed. It 
was not until half an hour later, when she was 
twelve miles distant, that she counted the seventy- 

five flashes of the Nwrnberg's guns which finally 

destroyed the Monmouth. I am afraid that the 
story of the cheers from the Monmouth which sped 
the Glasgow upon her way must be dismissed as 
a, pretty legend. No one in the Glasgow heard 
them, and no one from the Monmouth survived to 
tell the tale. Captain Grant and his men of the 
Canopus must have suffered agonies when they 
received the Glasgow's brief message. They had 
done their utmost to keep up with the Coo J Hope, 
and the slowness of their ship had been no fault 
of theirs. Grant had, I have been told, implored 
the Admiral to wait for him before risking an 
engagement. 

The journey to the Straits and to her junction 
with the Canopus was a very anxious one for the 
Glasgow's company. They did their best to be 
cheerful, though cheerfulness was not easy to come 
by. They had witnessed the total defeat of an 
English by a German squadron, ami before they 
could get down south into comparative safety the 

German ships, running down the chord of the arc 
which represented the Glasgow's course, might 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 289 

arrive first at the Straits. That there was no 
pursuit to the south may be explained by the one 
word coal. Von Spee could get coal at Valparaiso 
or at Coronel though the local coal was soft, 
wretched stuff— hut he had no means of replenish- 
ment farther south. One docs not realize how 
completely a squadron of warships is tied to its 
colliers or to its coaling bases until one trios to 
discover and explain the movements of war:-; flip-, 
cruising in the outer seas. 

While running down towards the Straits for 
twenty-four hours she kept up twenty-four knots 

— the Glasgow briefly notified the Canopvs of 

the disaster of Coronel and of her own intention 
to make for the Falkland Islands. Beyond this, 
she refrained from using the tell-tale wireless 
which might give away her position to a pursuing 
enemy. Upon the evening of the 3rd she picked 
up the German press story of the action, but 
kept silence upon it herself. On the morning 
of the 4th, very short of stores -her crew had 
been on reduced rations for a month —she reached 
the Straits and, to her great relief, found them 
empty of the enemy. She did not meet the Cano- 
pus until the; 6th, and then, with the big battleship 
upon her weather quarter, to keep the seas some- 
what off that sore hole in her side, she made a 
fortunately easy passage to the Falkland Islands 
and entered Port Stanley at daylight upon No- 
vember 8th. Thence the Glasgow despatched her 
first telegram to the authorities at home, and 
at six o'clock in the evening set off with the 
Canopus for the north. But that same evening 
came orders from England for the Canopus to 
return, in order that the coaling base of the Falk- 



240 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

lands might be defended, so the Glasgow, alone 
once more after many days, pursued her solitary 
way towards Rio and to her meeting with the 
Carnarvon, Defence, and Cornwall, which were 
at that time lying off the River Plate guarding 
the approaches to Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. 
The Glasgow had done her utmost to uphold the 
Flag, but the lot of the sole survivor of a naval 
disaster is always wretched. The one thing which 
counts in the eyes of English naval officers is the 
good opinion of their brethren of the sea; those 
of the Glasgoiv could not tell until they had tested 
it what would be the opinion of their colleagues in 
the Service. It was very kind, very sympathetic; 
so overflowing with kindness and sympathy were 
those who now learned the details of the disaster, 
that the company of the Glasgoiv, sorely humiliated, 
yet full of courage and hope for the day of reckon- 
ing, never afterwards forgot how much they owed 
to it. At home men growled foolishly, ignorantly, 
sank to the baseness of writing abusive letters to 
the newspapers, and even to the Glasgow herself, 
but the Service understood and sympathised, and 
it is the Service alone which counts. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE CRUISE OF THE " GLASGOW" 

Part II. — Coronel to Juan Fernandez 

(Nov. 1st, 1914, to March 14th, 1915) 

We left the British cruiser Glasgow off the River 
Plate, where she had arrived after her escape, 
sore at heart and battered in body, from the 
disaster of Coronel. The battleship Canopus re- 
mained behind at Port Stanley to defend the newly 
established coaling-station at the Falkland Islands. 
Her four 12-inch guns would have made the inner 
harbour impassable to the lightly armoured cruisers 
of Admiral von Spee had he descended before the 
reinforcements from the north arrived; and the 
colliers, cleverly hidden in the remote creeks of 
the Islands, would have been most dim cult for 
him to discover. It was essential to our plans 
that there should be ample stores of coal at the 
Falklands for the use of Sturdee's punitive squadron 
when it should arrive, and every possible precau- 
tion was taken to ensure the supply. As it hap- 
pened, von Spee did not come for five weeks. He 
was at his wits' end to find coal, and was, moreover, 
short of ammunition after the bombardment of 
Tahiti and the big expenditure in the Coronel fight. 
So he remained pottering about off the Chilian 

241 



'212 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

coast until he had swept up enough of coal ami 
of colliers to make his journey to the Falklamls, 
and to provide for his return to the Lair which 
he had established in an inlet upon the coast. 

At the English Bank, off the River Plate, the 
Glasgow had joined up with the Carnarvon, Defence, 
and Cornwall, and her company were greatly 
refreshed in spirit by the kindly understanding 
and sympathy of their brothers of the sea. The 
officers and men of the Glasgow, who had by now 
worked together for more than two years, had 
come through their shattering experiences with 
extraordinarily little loss of moral. They hail 
suffered a material defeat, but their courage and 
confidence in the ultimate issue burned as brightly 
as ever. Even upon the night of the disaster, 
when they were seeking a safe road to the Straits, 
uncertain whether the Germans would arrive there 
first, they were much more concerned for the 
safety of the Canopus than worried about their 
own skins. Their captain and navigating lieu- 
tenant had thrust upon them difficulties and 
anxieties of which the others were at first ignorant. 
The ship's compasses were found to be gravely 
disturbed by the shocks of the action, their mag- 
netism had been upset, and not until star sights 
could be taken were they able to correct the error 
of fully twenty degrees. The speed at which the 
cruiser travelled buried the stern deeply, and 
the water entering by the big hole blown in the 
port quarter threatened to flood a whole compart- 
ment and make it impossible for full speed to be 
maintained. The voyage to the Straits was, for 
those responsible, a period of grave anxiety. Yet 
through it all the officers and men did their work 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 243 

and maintained a cheerful countenance, as if to 
pass almost scatheless through a tremendous tor- 
rent of shell, and to get away with waggling com- 
passes and a great hole between wind and water, 
was an experience which custom had made of 
little moment. No one could have judged from 
their demeanour that never before November 1st, 
had the Glasgow been in action, and that not until 
November Oth, when she had beside her the support 
of the Campus's great guns, did she reach com- 
parative safety. 

The Glasgow's damaged side had been shored up 
internally with baulks of timber, but if she were 
to become sea- and battle-worthy it was necessary 
to seek for some more permanent means of repair. 
Bo with her consorts she made for Rio, arriving on 
the 16th, and reported her damaged condition to 
the Brazilian authorities. Under the Hague Con- 
vention she was entitled to remain at Rio for a 
sufficient time to be made seaworthy, and the 
Brazilian Government interpreted the Convention 
in the most generous sense. The Government 
floating dock was placed at her disposal, and here 
for five days she was repaired, until with her torn 
side plating entirely renewed she was as fit as ever 
for the perils of the sea. Her engineers took the 
fullest advantage of those invaluable days; they 
overhauled the boilers and engines so thoroughly 
that when the bold cruiser emerged from Rio she 
was fresh and clean, ready to steam at her own full 
speed of some twenty-six knots, and to fight any- 
thing with which she could reasonably be classed 
in weight of metal. By this time the Glasgow 
had learned of the great secret concentration 
about to take place at her old Pirates' Lair to the 



2U THE SILENT WATCHERS 

north, and of those other concentrations which 
were designed to ensure the destruction of von 
Spee to whatsoever part of the wide oceans he 
might direct, his ships. 

The disaster of Coronel had set the Admiralty 
bustling to very good and thorough purpose. No 
fewer than five squadrons were directed to con- 
centrate for the one purpose of ridding the seas 
of the German cruisers. First came down Sturdee 
with the battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexible 
to join the Carnarvon, Glasgow, Kent, Cornwall, 
and Bristol at the Pirates' Lair. Upon their arrival 
the armoured cruiser Defenee was ordered to the 
Cape to complete there a watching squadron ready 
for von Spee should he seek safety in that direction. 
One Japanese squadron remained to guard the 
China seas, and another of great power sped across 
the Pacific towards the Chilian coast. In Aus- 
tralian waters were the battle cruiser Australia and 
her consorts of the Unit, together with the French 
cruiser Montcalm. Von Spec's end was certain; 
what was not quite so certain was whether he 
would fall to the Japanese or to Sturdee. Our 
Japanese Allies fully understood that we were 
gratified at his falling to us; he had sunk our 
ships and was our just prey. Yet if he had loitered 
much longer off Chili, and had not at last ventured 
upon his fatal Falklands dash, the gallant Japanese 
would have had him. Luck favoured us now, as 
it had favoured us a month earlier when the Emdcn 
was destroyed at the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Those 
who have read my story of the Emdcn in Chapter IX 
will remember that but for the fortune of position 
which placed the Sydney nearest to the Islands 
when their wireless call for help went out, the 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 245 

famous raider would in all probability have fallen 
to a Japanese light cruiser which was with the 
Australian convoy. 

The mission of the Invincible and Inflexible, and 
the secrecy with which it was enshrouded, is one 
of the most romantic episodes of the war. I 
have already dealt fully with it. But there has 
since come to me one little detail which reveals 
how very near we were, at one time, to a German 
discovery of the whole game. The two battle 
cruisers coaled at St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands 
— Portuguese territory, within which we had no 
powers of censorship — and at the Pirates' Lair 
off the Brazilian coast. Their movements began 
to be talked about in Rio and the River Plate. 
Men knew of the Coronel disaster and shrewdly 
suspected that the two great ships were on their 
way to the South Atlantic. A description of their 
visit had been prepared, and was actually in type. 
It was intended for publication in a local South 
American paper. That it was not published, 
when urgent representations were made on our 
behalf, reveals how scrupulous was the considera- 
tion with which our friends of Brazil and the 
Argentine regarded our interests. There were 
no powers of censorship, the appeal was as man to 
man, and Englishman to Portuguese, and the 
appeal prevailed — even over the natural thirst of 
a journalist for highly interesting news. The 
battle cruisers coaled and passed upon their way, 
and no word of their visit went forth to Berlin or 
to von Spec. 

The Glasgow was among the British cruisers which 
greeted Sturdee at the Pirates' Lair, and as soon 
as ammunition and stores had been distributed 



246 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

and coal taken in, the voyage to the Falkland 
Islands began. The squadron arrived in the 
evening of December 7th, and at daybreak of the 
8th von Spee ran upon his fate. The part played 
by the Glasgoiu in the action was less spectacular 
than that which fell to the battle cruisers, but it 
was useful and has some features of interest. 
Among other things it illustrates how little is 
known of the course of a naval action — spread over 
hundreds of miles of sea — while it takes place, and 
for some time even after it is over. 

On the morning of December 8th, at eight o'clock, 
the approach of the German squadron was observed, 
and at this moment the English squadron was 
hard at work coaling. By 9.45 steam was up and 
the pursuit began. The Glasgow was lying in the 
inner harbour with banked fires, ready for sea at 
two hours' notice, but her Engineer Lieutenant- 
Commander Shrubsole and his staff so busied 
themselves that in little over an hour from the 
signal to raise steam she was under weigh, and 
an hour later she was moving in chase of the 
enemy at a higher speed than she obtained in her 
contractors' trials when she was a brand-new ship 
three years earlier. Throughout the war the 
engineering staff of the Royal Navy has never 
failed to go one better than anyone had the right 
to expect of it. It has never failed to respond to 
any call upon its energies or its skill, never. 

In order that we may understand how the 
Dresden was able to make her escape unscathed 
from her pursuers — she bolted without firing a 
shot in the action — I must give some few details 
of the position of the ships when the German 
light cruisers were ordered by von Spee to take 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 247 

themselves off as best they might. Shortly before 
one o'clock the Glasgow, a much faster ship than 
anything upon our side except the two battle 
cruisers, was two miles ahead of the flagship In- 
vincible, and it was Sturdee's intention to attack 
the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau — hull down on the 
horizon — with his speediest ships, the Invincible, 
Inflexible, and Glasgow. Our three other cruisers 
— Carnarvon, Cornwall, and Kent — were well astern 
of the leaders. At 1.04 the Scharnhorst and Gneise- 
nau turned to the eastward to accept battle and 
to cover the retreat of their light cruisers, which 
were then making off towards the southeast. 
Admiral Sturdee, seeing at once that the light 
cruisers might make good their escape unless 
the speedy Glasgow were detached in pursuit, 
called up the Carnarvon (Rear-Admiral Stoddart) 
to his support, and ordered Captain Luce in the 
Glasgow to take charge of the job of rounding up 
and destroying the Leipzig, NiXrnberg, and Dresden. 
The Glasgow, therefore, began the chase at a grave 
disadvantage. She first had to work round the 
stern of the Invincible, pass the flagship upon her 
disengaged side, and then steam off from far in 
the rear after the Cornwall and Kent, which had 
already begun the pursuit. The Leipzig and 
Number g were a long way off, and the Dresden 
was even farther. This cruiser, Dresden, though 
sister to the Emden, was, unlike her sister and the 
others of von Spee's light cruisers, fitted with 
Parsons' turbine engines. She was much the 
fastest of the German ships at the Falkland Islands, 
and beginning her flight with a start of some ten 
miles quickly was lost to sight beyond the horizon. 
The Cornwall and Kent had no chance at all of 



248 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

overtaking her, and the Glasgow, whose captain 
was the senior naval officer in command of the 
pursuing squadron of the three English cruisers, 
could not overtake a long stern chase by herself so 
long as the Leipzig and Niirnberg were in his course 
and had not been disposed of. He was obliged 
first to make sure of them. Steaming at twenty- 
four and a half knots, the Glasgow drew away from 
the battle cruisers and began to overhaul the 
Leipzig and Niirnberg. She decided to attack the 
Leipzig, which was nearest to her, and to regulate 
her speed so that the Cornwall and Kent — both 
more powerful but much slower ships than herself 
— would not be left behind. As it happened the 
engineering staffs of these not very rapid " County " 
cruisers rose nobly to the emergency, the Cornwall 
was able to catch the Leipzig and to take a large 
part in her destruction, while the Kent kept on 
after the Niirnberg and, as it proved, was successful 
in destroying her also. One of the ten boilers of 
the Niirnberg had been out of action for weeks past 
and her speed was a good deal below its best. 

The sea is a very big place, but that portion of 
it contained within the ring of the visible horizon 
is very small. To those in the Glasgow, pressing 
on in chase of the Leipzig, the scene appeared 
strange and even ominous. They could see the 
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau far away, moving ap- 
parently in pursuit of themselves, but the battle 
cruisers hidden below the curve of the horizon 
they could not see. When firing from the Invin- 
cible and Inflexible ceased for a while — as it did 
at intervals — it seemed to the Glasgow's company 
that they were sandwiched between von Spee's 
armoured cruisers and his light cruisers, and that 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 249 

the battle cruisers, upon which the result of the 
action depended, had disappeared into space. 
The telegraph room and the conning-tower doubt- 
less knew what was happening, but the ship's 
company as a whole did not. To this brevity of 
vision, and to this detachment from exact informa- 
tion, one must set down the extraordinarily con- 
flicting stories one receives from the observers of 
a naval action. They see what is within the horizon 
but not what is below it, and that which is below 
is not uncommonly far more important than that 
which is above. 

Shortly after three o'clock the Glasgow opened 
upon the Leipzig with her foremost 6-inch gun 
at a range of about 12,000 yards (about seven 
miles), seeking to outrange the lighter 4.1-inch 
guns carried by the German cruiser. The distance 
closed down gradually to 10,000 yards, at which 
range the German guns could occasionally get in 
their work. They could, as the Emden showed in 
her fight with the Sydney, and as was observed at 
Coronel, do effective shooting even at 11,000 
yards, but hits were difficult to bring off, owing 
to the steepness of the fall of the shells and the 
narrowness of the mark aimed at. For more than 
an hour the Glasgow engaged the Leipzig by her- 
self, knocking out her secondary control position 
between the funnels, and allowing the Cornwall 
time to arrive and to help to finish the business 
with her fourteen 6-inch guns. At one time the 
range fell as low as 9,000 yards, the Leipzig's 
gunners became very accurate, and the Glasgow 
suffered nearly all the casualties which overtook 
her in the action. 

About 4.20 the Cornwall was able to open fire, 



250 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

and the Glasgow joined her, so that both ships 
might concentrate upon the same side of the 
Leipzig. Just as Admiral Sturdee in his fight with 
the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau could not 
afford to run risks of damage far from a repairing 
base, so the Glasgow and the Cornwall with several 
hours of daylight before them were not justified 
in allowing impatience to hazard the safety of 
the ships. They had to regard the possible use 
of torpedoes and to look out for dropped mines. 
Neither torpedoes nor mines were, in fact, used 
by the Germans, though at one time in the course 
of the action drums, mistaken for mines, were seen 
in the water and carefully avoided. They were 
cases in which cartridges were brought from the 
magazines, and which were thrown overboard 
after being emptied. As the afternoon drew on 
the weather turned rather misty, and the attacking 
ships were obliged to close in a little and hurry 
up the business. This was at half-past five. 

From the first the Leipzig never had a chance. 
She was out-steamed and utterly out-gunned. 
Her opponents had between them four times her 
broadside weight of metal, and the Cornwall was 
an armoured ship. She never had a chance, yet 
she went on, fired some 1,500 rounds — all that 
remained in her magazines after Coronel — and did 
not finally cease firing until after seven o'clock. 
For more than four hours her company had looked 
certain death in the face yet gallantly stood to 
their work. From first to last von Spee's con- 
centrated squadron played the naval game accord- 
ing to the immemorial rules, and died like gentle- 
men. Peace be to their ashes. In success and 
in failure they were the most gallant and honour- 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 251 

able of foes. At seven o'clock the Leipzig was 
smashed to pieces, she was blazing from stem to 
stern, she was doomed, yet gave no sign of sur- 
render. 

At this moment, when the work of the Glasgow 
and the Cornwall had been done — the Cornwall, 
it should be noted, bore the heavier burden in 
this action — she was hit eighteen times, though 
little hurt, and played her part with the utmost 
loyalty and devotion — at this moment flashed the 
news through the ether that the Scharnhorst and 
Gneisenau had been sunk. The news spread, and 
loud cheers went up from the English ships. To 
the doomed company in the Leipzig those cheers 
must have carried some hint of the utter disaster 
which had overtaken their squadron. It was not 
until nine o'clock (six hours after the Glasgow 
had begun to fire upon her) that she made her last 
plunge — if a modern compartment ship does 
not blow up, she takes a powerful lot of shell to 
sink her — and the English ships did everything 
that they could to save life. The Glasgow drew 
close up under her stern and lowered boats, at the 
same time signalling that she was trying to save 
life. There was no reply. Perhaps the signals 
were not read; perhaps there were not many left 
alive to make reply. The Leipzig, still blazing, 
rolled right over to port and disappeared. Six 
officers, including the Navigating Lieutenant-Com- 
mander, and eight men were picked up by the 
Glasgow's boats. Fourteen officers and men out of 
nearly 300 ! The captives were treated as honoured 
guests and made much of. Our officers and 
men took their gallant defeated foes to their 
hearts and gave them of their best. It was not 



252 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

until two days later, when news arrived that 
the Leipzig's sister and consort the Nurribcrg had 
been sunk by the Kent, that these brave men 
broke down. Then they wept. They cared little 
for the Dresden — a stranger from the North 
Atlantic — but the Niirnberg was their own consort, 
beside whom they had sailed for years, and beside 
whom they had fought. They had hoped to the 
last that she might make good her escape from 
the wreck of von Spec's squadron. When that 
last hope failed they wept. When I think of von 
Spee's gallant men, so human in their strength 
and in their weakness, I cannot regard them as 
other than worthy brothers of the sea. 

In the Coronel action the Glasgow, exposed to 
the concentrated fire of the Leipzig and Dresden 
for an hour, and to the heavy guns of the Gneisenau 
for some ten minutes, did not lose a single man. 
There were four slight wounds from splinters, 
that was all. But in her long fight with the Leipzig 
alone, assisted by the powerful batteries of the 
Cornwall, the Glasgow suffered two men killed, 
three men severely wounded, and six slightly 
hurt. Such are the strange chances of war. 
After Coronel, though they had seen two of their 
own ships go down and were in flight from an 
overwhelming enemy, the officers and men were 
wonderfully cheerful. The shrewder the buffets 
of Fate the stiffer became their tails. But after 
the Falklands, when success had wiped out the 
humiliation of failure, there came a nervous 
reaction. Defeat could not depress the spirit of 
these men, but victory, by relieving their minds 
from the long strain of the past months, made 
them captious and irritable. Perhaps their spirits 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 253 




THE CBUISE OF THE " GLASCOW." 



254 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

were overshadowed by the prospect of the weary 
hunt for the fugitive Dresden. 



By wondrous accident perchance one may 
Grope out a needle in a load of hay. 

Four German cruisers had been sunk, but one, 
the Dresden, had escaped, and the story of the 
next three months is the story of a search — 
always wearisome, sometimes dangerous, some- 
times even absurd. The Straits of Magellan, the 
islands of Tierra del Fuego and of the Horn, and 
the west coast of the South American spur are a 
maze of inlets, many uncharted, nearly all unsur- 
veyed. The hunt for the elusive Dresden among 
the channels, creeks, and islands was far more 
difficult than the proverbial grope for a needle 
in a load of hay. A needle buried in hay cannot 
change its position; provided that it really be 
hidden in a load, patience and a magnet will infal- 
libly bring it forth. The Dresden could move 
from one hiding place to another, no search for 
her could ever exhaust the possible hiding-places, 
and it was not positively known until after she 
had been run down and destroyed where she had 
been in hiding. That she was found after three 
weary months may be explained by that one word 
which explains so much in naval work — coal. The 
Dresden after her flight from the Falkland Islands 
action was short of coal; von Spee's attendant 
colliers, Baden and Santa Isabel, had been pursued 
and sunk by the Bristol and the armed liner 
Macedonia, and she was cast upon the world with- 
out means of replenishing her bunkers. This was, 
of course, known to her pursuers, so that they 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 255 

expected, and expected rightly, that she would 
hang about in some secluded creek until her 
dwindling supplies drove her forth upon the seas 
to hunt for more. Which is what happened. 

Upon the evening of December 8th, after the 
Glasgow and Cornwall had disposed of the Leipzig, 
there were one English and two German cruisers 
unaccounted for. The Kent had last been seen 
chasing the Nilrnherg towards the south-east, 
while the Dresden was disappearing over the curve 
of the horizon to the south. Upon the following 
morning no news had come in from the Kent, and 
some anxiety was felt; it was necessary to find 
her before proceeding with the pursuit of the 
Dresden, and much valuable time was lost. It 
happened that during her fight with the Nurriberg, 
which she sank in a most business-like fashion, 
the Kent's aerials were shot away and she lost 
wireless contact with Sturdee's squadron. The 
Glasgow was ordered off to search for her, but 
fortunately the Kent turned up on the morning of 
the 10th deservedly triumphant. She had per- 
formed the great feat of catching and sinking a 
vessel which on paper was much faster than her- 
self, and she had done it though short of coal 
and at the sacrifice of everything wooden on 
board, including the wardroom furniture. She 
was compelled with the Glasgow and Cornvmll to 
return to Port Stanley for coal, and this delay was 
of the utmost service to the fugitive Dresden. 
Though the movements of that cruiser, in the 
interval, were not learned until much later, it 
will be convenient if I give them now, so that the 
situation may be made clear. The Dresden had 
owed her escape to her speed and to the occupation 



256 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

of the Glasgow — the only cruiser upon our side 
which could catch her — with the Leipzig. She got 
clear away, rounded the Horn on the 9th, and on 
December 10th entered the Cockburn Channel on 
the west coast of Tierra del Fuego. At Stoll Bay 
she passed the night, and her coal-bunkers being 
empty sent men ashore to cut enough wood to 
enable her to struggle up to Punta Arenas. She 
ran a great risk by making for so conspicuous a 
port, but she had no choice. Coal must be obtained 
somehow or her number would speedily go up. 
She was not entitled to get Chilian coal, for she 
had managed to delude the authorities into supply- 
ing her upon five previous occasions during the 
statutory period of three months. Once in three 
months a belligerent warship is permitted, under 
the Hague Rules, to coal at the ports of a neutral 
country; once she claims this privilege she is 
cut off from getting more coal from the same 
country for three months. But the Dresden again 
managed, as she had already done four times 
before, to secure supplies illegitimately. She coaled 
at Punta Arenas, remained there for thirty-one 
hours — though after twenty-four hours she was 
liable to internment — and left at 10 p.m. on the 
13th. It was this disregard for the Hague Rules 
which led to the destruction of the Dresden in 
Chilian territorial waters at Juan Fernandez three 
months later. We held that she had broken 
international law deliberately many times, she 
was no longer entitled to claim its protection. 
She could not disregard it when it knocked against 
her convenience, and shelter herself under it when 
in need of a protective mantle. She had by her 
own violations become an outlaw. 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 257 

At 2.30 a.m. on the 13th, Sturdee learned that 
the Dresden was at Punta Arenas. The Bristol, 
which was ready, jumped off the mark at once; 
the Inflexible and the Glasgow, which were not 
quite ready, got off at 9.15. Thus it happened 
that the Bristol reached Punta Arenas seventeen 
hours after the Dresden had left, to vanish, as it 
were, into space, and not to be heard of again for 
a couple of months. What she did was to slip 
down again into the Cockburn Channel and lie 
at anchor in Hewett Bay near the southern exit. 
On December 26th she shifted her quarters to an 
uncharted and totally uninhabited creek, called 
the Gonzales Channel, and there she lay in idle 
security until February 4th. 

During the long weeks of the Dresden's stay in 
Hewett Bay and the Gonzales Channel, the English 
cruisers were busily hunting for her among the 
islets and inlets of the Magellan Straits, Tierra del 
Fuego, and the west coast of the South American 
spur. The Carnarvon, Cornwall, and Kent took 
charge of the Magellan Straits, the Glasgow and 
Bristol ferreted about the recesses of the west 
coast with the Inflexible outside of them to chase 
the sea-rat should she break cover for the open. 
The battle cruiser Australia came in from the 
Pacific and with the ''County" cruiser Newcastle, 
from Mexico, kept watch off Valparaiso. The 
Dresden, lying snug in the Gonzales Channel, was 
not approached except once, on December 29th, 
when one of the searchers was within twenty 
miles of her hiding-place. The weather was thick 
and she was not seen. The big ships did not long 
waste their time over the search. It was one 
better suited to light craft, for lighter craft even 



258 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

than the Glasgow or Bristol, for which the uncharted 
channels often threatened grave dangers. Armed 
patrols or picket boats, of shallow draught, were 
best suited to the work, and in its later stages were 
furbished up and made available. 

On December 16th the battle cruisers Invincible 
and Inflexible were recalled to England, and the 
Canopus went north to act as guardship at the 
precious Pirates' Lair which has figured so often 
in these pages. The Australia passed on her way 
to the Atlantic, across which the Canadian con- 
tingents were in need of convoy, and the super- 
vision of the Dresden search devolved upon Admiral 
Stoddart of the Carnarvon. The Admiral with the. 
Carnarvon and Cormvall remained in and out of 
the Magellan Straits, while the captain of the 
Glasgow, with him the Kent, Bristol, and Newcastle, 
was put in charge of the Chilian Archipelago. 
Gradually as time went on and the Dresden lay 
low — all this while in the Gonzales Channel — other 
ships went away upon more urgent duties and the 
chase was left to the Glasgoiv, Kent, and an armed 
liner Orama. The Bristol had butted herself ashore 
in one of the unsurveyed channels and was obliged 
to seek a dock for repairs. The great concen- 
tration of which the Glasgow had been the focus 
was over, she was now back at her old police 
work, though not upon her old station. She had 
begun the war in sole charge of the South Atlantic ; 
the wheel of circumstance had brought her, with 
her consorts, to the charge of the South Pacific. 

Although the Glasgow's company had had many 
experiences of the risks of war, they had never 
felt in action the strain upon their nerves which 
was always with them day in day out during that 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 259 

long weary hunt for the Dresden in the Chilian 
Archipelago. They explored no less than 7,000 
miles of narrow waters, for the most part uncharted, 
feeling their way by lead and by mother wit, be- 
coming learned in the look of the towering rocks 
which shut them in, and in the kelp growing upon 
their sea margins. The channels wound among 
steep high cliffs, around which they could not see. 
As they worked stealthily round sharp corners, 
they were always expecting to encounter the 
Dresden with every gun and torpedo tube registered 
upon the narrow space into which they must 
emerge. Their own guns and torpedoes were 
always ready for instant action, but in this game 
of hide-and-seek the advantage of surprise must 
always rest with the hidden conscious enemy. This 
daily strain went on through half of December 
and the whole of January and February! One 
cannot feel surprised to learn that in the view of 
the Glasgow's company the actions of Coronel and 
the Falklands were gay picnics when set in com- 
parison with that hourly expectation throughout 
two and a half months of the sudden discovery of 
the Dresden, and that anticipated blast of every 
gun and mouldy which she could on the instant 
bring to bear. Added to this danger of sudden 
attack was the ever-present risk of maritime 
disaster. It is no light task to navigate for three 
months waters to which exist no sailing directions 
and no charts of even tolerable accuracy. Upon 
Captain Luce and upon his second in command, 
Lieutentant-Commander Wilfred Thompson, rested 
a load of responsibility which it would be difficult 
to overestimate. 

It was not until early in March that any authentic 



2G0 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

news of the movements of the Dresden became 
Available. Upon February 4th she had issued 
forth of the Gonzales Channel and crept stealthily 
up the Chilian coast. To the Glasgoio had come 
during the long weeks of the Dresden's hiding many 
reports that she was obliged to investigate. Many 
times our own cruisers were seen by ignorant 
observers on shore and mistaken for the Dresden; 
out would flow stories which, wandering by way 
of South American ports — and sometimes by way 
of London itself — would come to rest in the Glas- 
gow's wireless-room and increase the burden thrown 
upon her officers. More than once she was taken 
by shore watchers to be the Dresden, and urgently 
warned from home to be on the look-out for herself! 
At last the veil lifted. The Dresden, with her 
coal of Punta Arenas approaching exhaustion, was 
sighted at a certain spot well up the Chilian coast 
where had been situated von Spee's secret Lair. 
The news was rushed out to the Glasgoiv, and since 
her consort, the Kent, was nearest to the designated 
spot this cruiser was despatched at once to in- 
vestigate. As at the Falklands action, her 
engineers rose to the need for rapid movement. 
For thirty-six hours continuously she steamed 
northwards at seventeen knots, and arrived just 
before daybreak on the 7th. Nothing was then 
in sight, nor until three o'clock in the afternoon 
of the following day, the 8th. While in misty 
weather the Kent was waiting and watching out at 
sea, a cloud bank lifted and the Dresden was re- 
vealed. She had not been seen by us since the 
day of her flight, December 8th, exactly three 
months before! The Dresden was a shabby 
spectacle, her paint gone, her sides raw with rust 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 201 

and standing high out of the water. She was 
evidently light, and almost out of coal. The Kent 
at once made for her quarry, but the Dresden, a 
much faster :-Jjj"i>, drew away. Foul as .she was, 
for she had not been in dock since the war began, 
the Kent was little cleaner. The Dresden drew 
away, but the relentless pursuit of the indefatigable 
Kent kept her at full speed for six hour.-;, and left 

her with no more than enough fuel to reach Masa- 
fuera or Juan Fernandez. By thus forcing the 
Dresden to burn most of the fuel which still 
remained in her bunkers, the Kent performed an 

invaluable service. Thiswason March 8th. Juan 

Fernandez was judged to be the most likely spot 

in which she would take refuge, and thither the 
Glasgow, Kent, arid Orama foregathered, arriving 
at daybreak on the 14th. In Cumberland Bay, 

GOO yards from the shore, the Dresden lay at 
anchor; the chase was over. She had arrived 
at 8.30 a.m. on the 0th; she had been in Cmilian 
waters for nearly five days. Yet her flag was still 
flying, and there was no evidence that she had 
been interned. Cumberland Bay is a small settle- 
ment, and there was no Chilian force present 
capable of interning a German warship. 

I will indicate what happened The main facts 
have been told in the correspondence which took 
place later between the Chilian and British Govern- 
ments. I will tell the Story as I have myself 
gathered it, and as I interpret it. 

The Dresden lay in neutral Chilian waters, yet 
her flag was flying, and she had trained her guns 
upon the English squadron which had found her 
there. There was nothing to prevent her — though 
liable to internment- from making off unless steps 



262 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

were taken at once to put her out of action. She 
had many times before broken the neutrality 
regulations of Chili, and was rightly held by us 
to be an outlaw to be captured or sunk at sight. 
Acting upon this just interpretation of the true 
meaning of neutrality, Captain Luce of the Glasgow, 
the senior naval officer, directed his own guns and 
those of the Kent to be immediately fired upon the 
Dresden, The first broadside dismounted her fore- 
castle guns and set her ablaze. She returned the 
fire without touching cither of the English ships. 
Then, after an inglorious two and a half minutes, 
the Dresden's flag came down. 

Captain Ludecke of the Dresden despatched a 
boat conveying his "adjutant" to the Glasgow 
for what he called "negotiations," but the English 
captain declined a parley. He would accept 
nothing but unconditional surrender. Li'ideeke 
claimed that his ship was entitled to remain in 
Cumberland Bay for repairs, that she had not 
been interned, and that his Hag had been struck 
as a signal of negotiation and not of surrender. 
When the Englishman Luce would not talk except 
through the voices of his guns, the German adjutant 
went back to his ship and Ludecke then blew her 
up. His crew had already gone ashore, and the 
preparations for destroying the Dresden had been 
made before her captain entered upon his so-called 
"negotiations." 

It was upon the whole fortunate that Ludecke 
took the step of sinking the Dresden himself. It 
might have caused awkward diplomatic com- 
plications had we taken possession of her in 
undoubted Chilian territorial waters, and yet we 
oould not have permitted her any opportunity of 



THE CRUISE OF THE GLASGOW 263 

escaping under the fiction of internment. Nothing 
would have been heard of internment if the English 
squadron had not turned up — the Dresden had 
already made an appointment with a collier — and 
if we had not by our fire so damaged the cruiser 
that she could not have taken once more to the 
sea. Ilcr self-destruction saved us a great deal 
of trouble. In the interval between the firing 
and the sinking of the Dresden, the Maritime 
Governor of Juan Fernandez suggested that the 
English should take away essential parts of the 
machinery and telegraph for a Chilian warship 
to do the internment business. Neither of these 
proceedings was necessary after the explosion. 
The Dresden was at the bottom of Cumberland 
Bay, and the British Government apologised to 
the Chilians for the technical violation of territorial 
waters. The apology was accepted, and everyone 
was happy — not the least the officers and men 
of the Dresden who, after months of aimless, hope- 
less wanderings, found themselves still alive and 
in a sunny land flowing with milk and honey. 
After their long stay in Tierra del Fuego the 
warmth of Chili must have seemed like paradise. 
The Dresden yielded to the Glasgow one item of 
the spoils of war. After the German cruiser had 
sunk, a small pig was seen swimming about in 
the Bay. It had been left behind by its late friends, 
but found new ones in the Glasgow's crew. That 
pig is alive still, or was until quite recently. Grown 
very large, very hairy, and very truculent, and 
appropriately named von Tirpitz, it has been 
preserved from the fate which waits upon less 
famous pigs, and possesses in England a sty and a 
nameplate all to its distinguished self. 



264 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

With the sinking of the Dresden the cruise of the 
Glasgow, which I have set out to tell, comes to a 
close. She returned to the South Atlantic, and 
for a further stretch of eighteen months her officers 
and men continued their duties on board. But 
life must for them have become rather dull. There 
were no more Coronels, or Falkland Islands actions, 
or hunts for elusive German cruisers. Just the 
daily work of a light cruiser on patrol duty in time 
of war. When in the limelight they played their 
part worthily, and I do not doubt continued to 
play it as worthily, though less conspicuously, 
when they passed into the darkness of the wings, 
and other officers, other men, and other ships 
occupied in their turn the bright scenes upon the 
naval stage. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS 
AND REFLECTIONS 

Part I 

It is strange how events of great national impor- 
tance become associated in one's mind with small 
personal experiences. I have told with what 
vividness I remember the receipt in November, 
1914, of private news that the battle cruisers I in- 
vincible and Inflexible had left Devonport for the 
Falkland Islands, and how I heard Lord Rosebery 
read out Sturdee's victorious dispatch to 6,000 
people in St. Andrew's Hall, Glasgow. In a 
similar way the Jutland battle became impressed 
upon my mind in an unforgettable personal fashion. 
On May 22nd, 1916, 1 learned that Admiral Beatty 
had at his disposal the four "Cats" — Lion, Tiger, 
Queen Mary, and Princess Royal — of about twenty- 
nine knots speed, and each armed with eight 13.5- 
inch guns, the two battle cruisers New Zealand 
and Indefatigable, of some twenty-seven knots of 
speed, and carrying each eight 12-inch guns, and 
the Queen Elizabeths, of twenty-five knots, all of 
which were armed with eight of the new 15-inch 
guns, which were a great advance upon the earlier 
thirteen-point-fives. The ships of the Fifth Battle 
Squadron had all been completed since the war 

265 



260 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

began. The Queen Elizabeth herself went into 
dock at Rosyth for repairs, so that for immediate 
service the squadron was reduced to four ships — 
Barham, Valiant, Warapitc, and Malaija. 

Upon the following Saturday, May 27th, I was 
invited to lunch in one of the battleships, but 
upon arrival at South Queensferry, I found the 
Fleet under Short Notice for sea, and no one was 
allowed to leave the ships, or to receive friends 
on board. It was a beautiful day, the long-, light- 
coloured Cats and the Futurist -grey battleships 
were a most noble sight, but I felt too much like 
a Peri shut out of Paradise to be happy in observing 
them. A day or two later. Thursday. June 1st, 
was fixed for my next visit, but again the Fates 
were unkind. When I arrived in the early morn- 
ing and stood upon the heights overlooking the 
anchorage. Heatty's Fleet had gone, and, though 
1 did not know it. had even then fought the Jutland 
battle. In the afternoon, news came with the 
return to the Forth of the damaged battleship 
Warspite surrounded by her attendant destroyers. 
That was on the Thursday afternoon, but it was 
not until the evening of Friday that the first 
Admiralty message was issued, that famous message 
which will never be forgotten either by the country 
or by the Navy. The impression which it made 
may be simply illustrated. I was sitting in my 
drawing-room after dinner, anxiously looking for 
news both on national and personal grounds, when 
a newsboy shrieked under my window "Great 
Naval Disaster: Five British Battleships Sunk." 
The news printed in the paper was not so bad as 
that shouted, but it was bad enough; it gave the 
impression of very heavy losses incurred for no 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 207 

compensating purpose, and turned what bad really 
been ft conspicuous naval success into an apology 
for a naval disaster. As a bumble student, I 
could to eome extent read between the lin< < . 
the dispatch and dimly perceive irbat had hap- 
pened, but to the mass of the British public, the 
wording of that immortal document could not 
have been worse conceived. To them it seemed 
that tli f ; End of All Things was at band. 

The ..lory runs that the first bulletin was made 
up by clerks from scraps of me ages which came 
over the wireless from the Grand Fleet, but in 
which the most important sentence of all was 
omitted. "The Germans arc claiming a victory," 
wailed the Admiralty clerks through the aerials 
at Whitehall. "What shall we say?" "Say," 
snapped the Grand fleet, "say that we gave them 
hell!" If the Admiralty had only said this, 
said it, too, in curt, blasphemous naval fashion, 

the public would have understood, arid all would 
have been well. What a dramatic chance was 
then lost! Think what a roar of laughter and 

cheering would have echoed round the world if 

the first dispatch had run as follows: 

"We have met arid fought the German Fleet, 
and given it hell. Beatty lost the Queen Mary 

and Indefatigable in the first part of the battle 

when the odds were heavily against US, but Jellicoe 
Coming up enveloped the enemy, and was only 
prevented by mist and low visibility from destroy- 
ing him utterly. The Germans have lost as many 
ships as we have, and are shattered beyond repair/ 1 
That message, in a few words, would have given 
a true impression of the greatest sea fight that 
the world has known, a fight, too, which has 



2G8 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

established beyond question the unchallengeable 
supremacy of British strategy, battle tactics, sea- 
manship, discipline, and devotion to duty of every 
man and boy in the professional Navy. In the 
technical sense, it was an indecisive battle: the 
Germans escaped destruction. But morally, and 
in its practical results, no sea fight has been more 
decisive. Nearly two years have passed since that 
morning of June 1st when the grey dawn showed 
the seas empty of German ships, and though the 
High Seas Fleet has put out many times since 
then, it has never again ventured to engage us. 
Jutland drove sea warfare, for the Germans, be- 
neath the surface, a petty war of raids upon 
merchant vessels, a war — as against neutrals — 
of piracy and murder. By eight o'clock on the 
evening of May 31st, 1916, the Germans had been 
out-fought, out-manoeuvred, and cut off from their 
bases. Had the battle begun three hours earlier, 
and had visibility been as full as it had been in 
the Falkland Islands action, had there been, above 
all, ample sea room, there would not have been 
a German battleship afloat when the sun went 
down. There never was a luckier fleet than that 
one which scrambled away through the darkness 
of May 3 1st- June 1st, worked its way round the 
enveloping horns of Jellicoe, Beatty, and Evan- 
Thomas, and arrived gasping and shattered at 
Wilhelmshaven. We can pardon the Kaiser, who, 
in his relief for a crowning mercy, proclaimed the 
escape to be a glorious victory. 

But though the Kaiser may, after his manner, 
talk of victories, German naval officers cherish 
no illusions about Jutland. If one takes the 
trouble to analyse their very full dispatches, their 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 269 

relief at escaping destruction shines forth too 
plainly to be mistaken. Admiral Scheer got away, 
and showed himself to be a consummate master 
of his art. But he never, in his dispatches, claims 
that the British Fleets were defeated in the military 
sense. They were foiled, chiefly through his own 
skill, but they were not defeated. The German 
dispatches state definitely that the battle of 
May 31st "confirmed the old truth, that the large 
fighting ship, the ship which combines the maximum 
of strength in attack and defence, rules the seas." 
The relation of strength, they say, between the 
English and German Fleets, "was roughly two 
to one." They do not claim that this over- 
whelming superiority in our strength was sensibly 
reduced by the losses in the battle, nor that the 
large English fighting ships — admittedly larger, 
much more numerous, and more powerfully gunned 
than their own — ceased after Jutland to rule the 
seas. Their claim, critically examined, is simply 
that in the circumstances the German ships made 
a highly successful escape. And so indeed they 
did. 

The Jutland battle always presents itself to my 
mind in a series of clear-cut pictures. Very few 
of those who take part in a big naval battle see 
anything of it. They are at their stations, occupied 
with their pressing duties, and the world without 
is hidden from them. I try to imagine the various 
phases of the battle as they were unfolded before 
the eyes of those few in the fighting squadrons 
who did see. Perhaps if I try to paint for my 
readers those scenes which are vividly before me, 
I may convey to them something of what I have 
tried to learn myself. 



270 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

Let us transport ourselves to the signal bridge 
of Admiral Beatty's flagship, the battle cruiser 
Lion, and take up station there upon the after- 
noon of May 31st, at half -past two. It is a fine 
afternoon, though hazy; the clouds lie in heavy 
banks, and the horizon, instead of appearing as 
a hard line, is an indefinable blend of grey sea and 
grey cloud. It is a day of "low visibility," a 
day greatly favouring a weak fleet which desires 
to evade a decisive action. We have been sweep- 
ing the lower North Sea, and are steering towards 
the north-west on our way to rejoin Jellicoe's 
main Fleet. Our flagship, Lion, is the leading 
vessel of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and 
following behind us, we can see the Princess Royal, 
Queen Mary, and Tiger. At a little distance be- 
hind the Tiger appear the two ships which remain 
to us of the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, the 
Indefatigable and New Zealand, fine powerful ships, 
but neither so fast nor so powerful as are our 
four Cats of the First Squadron. Some five 
or six miles to the west of us we can make out, 
against the afternoon sky, the huge bulk of the 
Barham, which, followed by her three consorts, 
Valiant, War spite, and Malaya, leads the Fifth 
Battle Squadron of the most powerful fighting 
ships afloat. We are the spear-head of Beatty's 
Fleet, but those great ships yonder, silhouetted 
against the sky, are its most solid shaft. 

Word runs round the ship that the enemy has 
been sighted, but since we know nothing of his 
numbers or of his quality — Jutland, though antici- 
pated and worked for, was essentially a battle 
of encounter — our light cruisers fly off to make 
touch and find out for us. Away also soars 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 



271 



*ofietiand I; 




Scale of Miles 



TOE BATTLE OF TUE QIANT8. 



272 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

seaplane, rising from the platform of our carrying . 
ship Engadine, a clumsy-looking seagull, with its 
big pontoon feet, but very fast and very deftly 
handled. The seaplane flies low, for the clouds 
droop towards the sea, it is heavily fired upon, 
but is not hit, and it returns to tell us — or rather 
the Admiral, in his conning tower below — just 
what he wishes to learn. There is an enemy 
battle cruiser squadron immediately in front of 
us, consisting of five armoured ships, with their 
attendant light cruisers and destroyers. The Ger- 
man battle cruisers are: Dcrffli?ujcr (12-inch guns), 
Lutzow (12-inch), Molike (11-inch), Scydlitz (11- 
inch), and another stated by the Germans to be 
the Von dcr Tajin, which had more than once been 
reported lost. Since our four big battle cruisers 
carry 13.5-inch guns, and two other guns of 12-inch, 
and the four battleships supporting us great 
15-inch weapons, we ought to eat up the German 
battle cruisers if we can draw near enough to see 
them distinctly. By half-past three the two 
British battle cruiser squadrons are moving at 
twenty-five knots, formed up in line of battle, 
and the Fifth Battle Squadron, still some five 
miles away, is steaming at about twenty-three 
knots. The Germans have turned in a southerly 
direction, and are flying at full speed upon a course 
which is roughly parallel with that which we 
have now taken up. During the past hour we 
have come round nearly twelve points — eight 
points go to a right angle — and are now speeding 
away from Jellicoe's Grand Fleet, which is some 
forty miles distant to the north and west. Since 
we are faster than Jellicoe, the gap between us and 
him is steadily opening out. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 273 

From the signal bridge, a very exposed position, 
we can see the turret guns below us and the spotting 
top above. The turrets swing round, as the 
gunners inside get their directions from the gunnery- 
control officer who, in his turn, receives every few 
moments the results of the range-finding and rate- 
of-chauge observations which are being continually 
taken by petty officers charged with the duty. 
Further corrections will be made when the guns 
begin to shoot, and the spotting officers aloft 
watch for the splashes of the shells as they fall 
into the sea. Naval gunnery, in spite of all the 
brains and experience lavished upon it, must 
always be far from an exact science. One has to 
do with moving ships firing at other moving ships, 
many factors which go to a precise calculation are 
imperfectly known, and though the margin of 
error may be reduced by modern instruments of 
precision, the long fighting ranges of to-day make 
the error substantial. The lower the visibility, 
the greater becomes the gunner's uncertainty, for 
neither range-finding nor spotting can be carried 
on with accuracy. Even on the clearest of days 
it is difficult to "spot" a shell-splash at more 
than 14,000 yards (eight land miles), a range which 
is short for the huge naval gun. When many 
guns are firing, it is not easy to pick up the splashes 
of one's own shells, and to distinguish between 
their water-bursts and the camouflage put up by 
an enemy. 

At our position upon the signal bridge, though 
we are there only in spirit, we probably feel much 
more of excitement than does any officer or man 
of the big ship upon which we have intruded our 
ghostly presence. Most of them can see nothing; 



•:;* THE SILENT WATCHERS 

all of thorn are too busy upon their duties to 
bother about personal feelings* Thoro is an atmos- 
phere of serene confidence in themselves and their 
ship which Communicates itself even to outsiders 
like us. At 3*48 the enemy is some 18,500 yards 
dist&nce, and visible, for the light has improved, 
and tiring begins almost simultaneously from us 
and our opponents. The first crash from the 
Lion's two fore-turrets nearly throws us off the 
bridge, so sudden and fierce it is. and so little d vs 
its intensity seem to be subdued by OUT ear-pro- 
teetors. But as other crashes follow down the 
line we grow accustomed to them, grip tightly at 
the hand-rail, and forget ourselves in the grandeur 
of the sight unfolding itself before us. Away, far 
away, is the enemy, hull down, smothered in smoke 
and by the huge gouts of spray thrown up by our 
bursting shells. He is adding to the splashes by 
tiring his own side batteries into the sea to eonfuse 
the judgment of our spotters. 

At each discharge from our ship, a great eone of 
incandescent gas flames forth, cutting like a sword 
through the pale curtain of smoke. From the 
distant enemy ships we can see thin flashes spurt 
in reply, and his shells pitch beside us and over 
us, lashing our decks with sea foam and sometimes 
throwing a torrent of water over the spotting 
top and bridge. Before five minutes have passed, 
we are wet through, our ears are drumming in 
spite of the faithful protectors, and all sensation 
except of absorbed interest in the battle has left us. 
At any moment we may be scattered by a bursting 
shell, or carried to the bottom with our sunken 
ship, but we do not give a thought to the risks. 

While we are firing at the enemy, and he is 



THE BATTLE < >J THE GIANTS 275 

firing at US at rang Varying from ten to eight 
miles, a fierce battle is going on between the lines 
of big ships. Light cruisers are fighting light 
cruisers, destroyers are rushing upon destro 
Atan early stage in the action, the German Admiral 
Hipper in command of the battle cruisers — 
launched fifteen destroyers at our line, and was 
taught a rough lesson in the quality of the boy 
who man our T. V>.\). s. Twelve of our heavier arid 

more powerfully armed destroyers fell upon the 
German fifteen, huddled them into a bunch, and 
had started to lay them out scientifically with 
gun and torpedo, when they fled hack to the shelter 
of their own big .ship.,. Following them up, our 
destroyers delivered a volley of torpedoes upon the 
German battle cruisers at less than 3,000 yards 
distance. Probably no damage irat done, for it 
in the forlornest of jobs to loose mouldies against 
Eai t manoeuvring shipi , but lack of sucee i does not 
in any way dim the splendour of the attempt. As 
light cruisers and destroyers fight arid manoeuvre, 
the torrent of heavy shells screams over their 
heads, flying as high in their course as Alpine 
mountains, and dropping almost vertically near 
the lines of battle eruii i 

As SOOn a:-; we turned to the south in pursuit of 
JJippcr's advance squadron of battle crui 

Admiral Evan-Thorn Lpporting battle- 

ships upon US, and we can now see them clearly 
about two miles away on our starboard quarter, 
formed in line of battle, the flag: hip Barham leading. 
At eight minutes past four they join in the fight, 
firing at a range of 20,000 yards (twelve miles), 
not an excessive distance for their tremendous 
flat-shooting 15-inch guns if the light were good, 



276 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

but too far for accuracy now that the enemy ships 

can be seen so very indistinctly. Up to now the 
German gunnery has been good; our ships have 
not often been seriously struck, but the shells in 
bunched salvoes have fallen very closely beside 
us. Our armour, though much thinner than that 
of the battleships behind us, is sufficient to keep 
off the enemy's light shells — our 13.5-inch shells 
are twice the weight of his 11-inch, and the 15-ineh 
shells tired by the Queen Elizabeths astern of us 
are more than twice the weight of his 12-inch. 
We feel little anxiety for our turrets, conning 
towers, or sides, but we notice how steeply his 
salvoes are falling at the long ranges, and are 
not without concern for our thin decks should 
any 12-inch shells of 850 lb. weight plump fairly 
upon them from the skies. By half-past four the 
German tire has slackened a good deal, has become 
ragged and inaccurate, showing that we are getting 
home with our heavy stuff, and the third ship in 
the line is seen to be on fire. All is going well, 
the enemy is outclassed in ships and in guns; we 
are still between him and his bases to the south- 
west, he is already becoming squeezed up against 
the big banks which stretch out one hundred miles 
from the Jutland coast, and for a while it looks as 
if Beatty had struck something both soft and good. 
But a few minutes make a great change. All 
through the last hour we have been steaming fast 
towards the main German High Seas Fleet and 
away from Jellicoe, and at 4.42 the leading German 
battleships can be seen upon the smoky horizon 
to the south-east. Though we do not know it 
yet, the whole High Seas Fleet is before us, in- 
cluding sixteen of the best German ships, and it 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIAXTS 277 

were the worst of folly to go any farther toward:-; 
it. We could, it IS true, completely outflank it 
by continuing on our present course, and with 
our high speed might avoid being crushed in a 
general action, but v/e should have irrevocably 
separated ourselves from Jellicoe, and have com- 
mitted a tactical mistake of the biggest kind. We 
should have divided the English forees in the face 
of the enemy, instead of concentrating them. So 
a quick order comes from the conning tower below, 
and away beside us runs a signal hoist. "Sixteen 
points, starboard." Sixteen points mean a com- 
plete half-circle, and round come our ships, the 
Lion leading, turning in a curve of which the 
diameter is nearly a mile, and heading now to 
the north, towards Jellicoe, instead of to the 
south, away from him. Our purpose now is to 
keep the Germans fully occupied until Jellicoe, 
who is driving his battleships at their fullest speed, 
can come down and wipe Fritz off the seas. As 
we come round, the German battle cruisers follow 
our manoeuvre, and also turn through sixteen 
points in order to place themselves at the head of 
the enemy's battle line. 

As we swing round and take up our new course, 
we pass between the Queen Elizabeths and the 
enemy, masking their fire, and for a few minutes 
we are exposed in the midst of a critical manoeuvre 
to the concentrated salvoes of every German 
battleship within range. The range is long, the 
German shells fired with high elevation fall very 
steeply, and we are safe except from the ill-luck 
of heavy projectiles pitching upon our decks. 
From the signal bridge of the Lion we can see 
every battle cruiser as it swings, or as it approaches 



278 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the turning point, we can see the whole beautiful 
length of them, and we also see a sight which has 
never before been impressed upon the eyes of man. 
For we see two splendid battle cruisers struck and 
sink; first the Indefatigable, and then the Queen 
Mary. It is not permitted to us to describe the 
scene as actually it presented itself to our eyes. 

Beatty has lost two battle cruisers, one of the 
first class and one of the second. There remain 
to him four — the three Cats and the New Zealand; 
he is sorely weakened, but does not hesitate. He 
has two duties to carry out — to lead the enemy 
towards Jellicoe, and so dispose of his battle 
cruisers beyond the head of the German lines as 
powerfully to aid Jellicoe in completing their 
development. Beatty is now round, and round 
also comes the Fifth Battle Squadron, forming 
astern of the battle cruisers, and with them engag- 
ing the leading German ships. The enemy is some 
14,000 yards distant from us in the Lion (8| 
miles), and this range changes little while Beatty 
is speeding first north and then north-east, in 
order to cross the "T" of the German line. We 
will continue to stand upon the Lion's bridge during 
the execution of this most spirited manoeuvre, 
and then leave Beatty's flagship in order to observe 
from the spotting top of a battleship how the four 
Queen Elizabeths fought the whole High Seas 
Fleet, while our battle cruisers were turning its 
van. What these splendid ships did, and did to 
perfection, was to stall the Germans off, and so 
give time both for the enveloping movement of 
Beatty and for the arrival and deployment of 
Jellicoe's main Fleet. 

By five o'clock Beatty is fairly off upon his 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 279 

gallant adventure, and during the next hour, the 
hardest fought part of the whole battle, the gap 
between the battle cruisers and the four supporting 
battleships steadily widens. - If the Germans are 
to be enveloped, Beatty must at the critical moment 
allow sufficient space between himself and Evan- 
Thomas for Jellicoe to deploy his big Fleet between 
them, and this involves on the part of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief a deployment in the midst of 
battle of a delicacy and accuracy only possible to 
a naval tactician of the highest order. But both 
Beatty and Evan-Thomas know their Jellicoe, to 
whom, at few-minute intervals, crackle from the 
aerials above us wireless messages giving with 
naval precision the exact courses and speeds of 
our ships and the bearings of the enemy. For an 
hour — up to the moment when we turned to the 
north — we ran away from Jellicoe, but during 
the next hour we steamed towards him; we know 
that he is pressing to our aid with all the speed 
which his panting engineers can get out of his 
squadrons. Beatty's battle cruisers, curving round 
the head of the German line at a range of 14,000 
to 12,000 yards, are firing all the while, and being 
fired at all the while, but though often hit, they are 
safer now than when they were a couple of miles 
more distant. 

We have now reached a very important phase 
in the battle. It is twenty minutes past six. 
At six o'clock the leading vessels of Jellicoe's 
Grand Fleet had been sighted five miles to the 
north of us and his three battle cruisers — In- 
vincible (Admiral Hood), Inflexible, and Indomitable 
— have flown down to the help of Beatty. They 
come into action, steaming hard due south, and 



280 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

take station ahead of us in the Lion. By this 
lengthening of his line to the south Beatty has now 
completely enveloped the German battle cruisers, 
which turn through some twelve points and endeav- 
our to wriggle out of the jaws of the trap which 
they see closing remorselessly upon them. They 
are followed in this turn by the battleships of 
the High Seas Fleet which, for more than an 
hour, have been faithfully hammered by Evan- 
Thomas's Queen Elizabeths, and show up against 
the sky a very ragged outline. The range of 
the battle cruisers is now down to 8,000 yards, 
and they get well home upon battleships as well 
as upon opponents of their own class. We do not 
ourselves escape loss, for the Invincible, which 
has become the leading ship, is shattered by 
concentrated gunfire. The gallant Hood, with his 
men, has gone to join his great naval ancestors. 

And now let us put the clock back to the hour, 
4.57, when the Queen Elizabeths had completed 
their turn to the north, and had taken up position 
astern of Beatty to hold off the main German 
Fleet while he is making his enveloping rush. 
From the spotting top of the battleship upon 
which we have descended we get a most inspiring 
view, though every now and then we are smothered 
in oily smoke from the huge flat funnels below 
us, and are drenched with water which is flung 
'up in torrents by shells bursting alongside. The 
enemy ships upon which we are firing are some 
18,000 yards distant, we can with great difficulty 
make them out amid the smoke and haze, and we 
wonder mightily how the keen-eyed spotting officers 
beside us can judge and correct, as they appear 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 281 

to be doing, the bursts of our shells more than 
ten miles distance. Our guns, and those of our 
consorts, are firing deliberately, for we do not 
know how long the battle will endure, and the 
supply of 15-inch shell and cordite cannot be 
unlimited in the very biggest of ships. We learn 
from the spotting officers that all our ships, except 
the Valiant, have been hit several times while 
coming into action by dropping shots, but that no 
serious harm has been done. Meanwhile the shells 
are falling fast about us, and all of our ships are 
repeatedly straddled. The Warspite suffered the 
most severely, though even she was able to go 
home to the Forth under her own steam. This 
is the battleship whose steering gear went wrong 
later in the action, and which turned two complete 
"O's" at full speed. Round she went in great 
circles of a mile in diameter, spitting shots with 
every gun that bore upon the enemy during her 
wild gyrations. Fritz began well, but does not 
seem able to stand punishment. He rarely hits 
us now, though we are giving him a much better 
mark than he presents to us. For we are sil- 
houetted against the almost clear sky to the west, 
while he — and there are a great many of him — is 
buried in mist and smoke to the east. Rarely 
can our range-finding officers take a clear observa- 
tion; rarely can our spotters make sure of a 
correction. Yet every now and then we note 
signs that our low-flying, hard-hitting shells — each 
one of which weighs not much short of a ton! 
— are getting home upon him at least as frequently 
as his shots are hitting us. Three of his battle- 
ships are new, built since the war began, but the 
rest are just Konigs and Kaisers, no better than 



282 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

our Dreadnoughts of half a dozen years ago. We 
would willingly take on twice our numbers of such 
battleships and fight them to a finish upon a clear 
summer's day. 

Our battle tactics are now plain to see. They 
are to keep out to the farthest visible range, to 
avoid being materially damaged, and to keep 
Fritz's battleships so fully occupied that they 
will have no opportunity of closing in upon Beatty 
when he completes his envelopment. We can see 
our battle cruisers some three miles away, swinging 
more and more round the head of the German 
line, and the enemy's battle cruisers edging away 
in the effort to avoid being outflanked. Far away 
to the north appears the smoke of the three battle 
cruisers which are speeding ahead of Jellicoe's 
main Fleet; they are getting their instructions 
from Beatty's Lion, and are already making for 
the head of his line so as to prolong it, and so to 
complete the envelopment which is now our urgent 
purpose. Our Queen Elizabeth battleships are 
not hurrying either their engines or their guns. 
We are moving just fast enough to keep slightly 
ahead of the first half-dozen of the German battle- 
ships; we are pounding them steadily whenever 
a decent mark is offered us — which unhappily is 
not often — and we have seen one big ship go down 
smothered in smoke and flames. The time draws 
on and it is already six o'clock; we have borne 
the burden of the fight for more than an hour, 
though it seems but a few minutes since we turned 
more than twenty miles back to the south, and 
first gave Fritz a taste of what the Fifth Battle 
Squadron could do. We are slowing down now, 
and the gap between us and Beatty is widening 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 283 

out, for we know that Jellicoe is coming, and 
that he will deploy his three battle squadrons 
between us and our battle cruisers which, extended 
in a long line, with Hood's Invincible in front, are 
well round the head of the German ships. The 
whole German Fleet is curving into a long, close- 
knit spiral between us and Beatty, and, if the 
light will hold, we have it ripe for destruction. 
We have played our part; the issue now rests 
with Jellicoe and the gods of weather. 

Everything for which we and the battle cruisers 
have fought and suffered, for which we have 
risked and lost the Queen Alary and Indefatigable, 
is drawing to its appointed end. Our Fifth Battle 
Squadron has nearly stopped, and has inclined 
four points towards the east, so as to allow the 
gap for Jellicoe's deployment to widen out. Firing 
upon both sides has ceased. We have great work 
still to do, and are anxious to keep all the shells 
we yet carry for it, and the enemy is too heavily 
battered and in too grievous a peril to think of 
anything but his immediate escape. We are 
waiting for Jellicoe, whose squadrons are already 
beginning to deploy. 

While the Queen Elizabeths wait, ready at any 
moment to resume the action whenever and 
wherever their tremendous services may be called 
for, we will leave the Fifth Battle Squadron, and, 
flying far over the sea, will penetrate into the 
Holy of Holies, the conning tower of the Fleet 
flagship wherein stands the small, firm-lipped, 
eager-eyed man who is the brain and nerve centre 
of the battle. There are those who have as sharp 
a thirst for battle — Beatty has; and there are 



284 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

those who have been as patient under long-drawn- 
out delays and disappointments — Kitchener was; 
yet there have been few fighting men in English 
history who could, as Jellicoe can, combine endur- 
ing patience with the most burning ardour, and 
never allow the one to achieve mastery over 
the other. Watch him now in the conning tower 
of the Iron Duke. He has waited and worked 
during twenty-two months for just this moment, 
when the German High Seas Fleet have placed 
their cards upon the table, and he, exactly at the 
proper instant, will play his overwhelming trumps. 
If ever a man had excuse for too hasty a movement, 
for too great an eagerness to snatch at victory, 
Jellicoe would have one now. His eyes flash, 
and one may read in them the man's intense 
anxiety not to allow one moment of unnecessary 
delay to interpose between his Fleet and the 
scattering enemy. Yet until the exact moment 
arrives when he can with sure hand deploy his 
squadrons into line of battle, and fit them with 
precision into the gap made for them between 
Beatty to the east and south and Evan-Thomas 
to the west and south, he will not give the order 
which, once given, cannot be recalled. For as 
soon as his Fleet has deployed, it will be largely 
out of his hands, its dispositions will have been 
made, and if it deploys too soon, the crushing 
opportunity will be missed, and the Germans will 
infallibly escape. So, with his divisions well in 
hand, he watches upon the chart the movements 
of his own and Beatty's vessels, as the wireless 
waves report them to him, and every few minutes 
goes to the observation hoods of the conning tower, 
and seeks to peer through the thick haze and 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 285 

smoke which still hide from him the enveloping 
horns of the English ships, and the curving masses 
of the enemy. If he could see clearly his task 
would be less difficult and the culmination of his 
hopes less doubtful. But he cannot see; he has 
to work by wireless and by instinct, largely by 
faith, trusting to the judgment of Beatty and 
Evan-Thomas, far away, and himself subject to 
the ever-varying uncertainties of sea fighting. 
He goes back to the chart, upon which his staff 
are noting down the condensed essence of all the 
messages as they flow in, and then, the moment 
having arrived, he gives the word. Away run the 
signal flags, picked up and interpreted by every 
squadron flagship, and then repeated by every 
ship. The close divisions of the Grand Fleet 
spread out, melt gracefully into lines — to all 
appearance as easily as if they were battalions of 
infantry — they swing round to the east, the fore- 
most vessel reaching out to join up with Beatty 's 
battle cruisers. As the Grand Fleet deploys, 
Evan-Thomas swings in his four Queen Elizabeths 
so that the Barham, without haste or hesitation, 
falls in behind the aftermost of Jellicoe's battle- 
ships, and the remainder of the Fifth Battle 
Squadron completes the line, which stretches now 
in one long curve to the west and north and east 
of the beaten Germans. The deployment is com- 
plete, the whole Grand Fleet has concentrated, 
the enemy is surrounded on three sides, we are 
faster than he is, and more than twice as power- 
ful; if the light will hold, his end has come. 
Although from the Iron Duke we cannot now see 
the wide enveloping horns, yet we have lately 
been with them and know them. The main Fleet 



286 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

in whose centre we now steam, consists of Dread- 
noughts, Orions, King George the Fifths, Iron 
Dukes (all acting as flagships), Royal Sovereigns, 
with 15-inch guns, the Canada, with 14-inch guns, 
and that queer Dago ship the Agincourt, with her 
seven turrets all on the middle line, and each 
containing two 12-inch guns. Not a ship in our 
battle line has been afloat for more than seven 
years, and most of them are less than three years 
old. The material newness of the Grand Fleet is 
a most striking testimony to the eternal youth of 
the Navy's ancient soul. 

We have now concentrated in battle line the 
battleships of our own main Fleet and six battle 
cruisers, after allowing for our losses, and the 
Germans have, after making a similar allowance, 
not more than fourteen battleships and three battle 
cruisers. I do not count obsolete pre-Dread- 
noughts. The disparity in force is greater even 
than is shown by the bare numbers, which it is not 
permitted to give exactly. Scarcely a ship of the 
enemy can compare in fighting force with the Queen 
Elizabeths or the Royal Sovereigns, or even with the 
Iron Dukes, Orions, and King George the Fifths. 
Of course he made off; he would have been a fool if 
he had not — and Admiral Scheer is far from being 
a fool. 

Our concentrated Fleet came into action at 6.17, 
and at this moment the Germans were curving in 
a spiral towards the south-west, seeking a way out 
of the sea lion's jaws. They were greatly favoured 
by the mist and were handled with superb skill. 
They relied upon constant torpedo attacks to fend 
off our battleships, while their own big vessels 
worked themselves clear. We could never see 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 287 

more than four or five ships at a time in their van, 
or from eight to ten in their rear. For two hours 
the English Fleet, both battleships and battle 
cruisers, sought to close, and now and then would 
get well home upon the enemy at from 11,000 to 
9,000 yards, but again and again under cover of 
torpedo attacks and smoke clouds, the Germans 
opened out the range and evaded us. We could 
not get in our heavy blows for long enough to crush 
Scheer, and he could not get in his mosquito 
attacks with sufficient success wholly to stave us 
off. For us those two hours of hunting an elusive 
enemy amid smoke and fog banks were intensely 
exasperating; for him they must have been not 
less intensely nerve-racking. All the while we 
were hunting him, he was edging away to the 
southwest — "pursuing the English" was his own 
humorous description of the manoeuvre — and both 
Jellicoe and Beatty were pressing down between 
him and the land, and endeavouring to push him 
away from his bases. All the while our battleships 
and battle cruisers were firing heavily upon any 
German ship which they could see, damaging many, 
and sinking one at least. The return fire was so 
ragged and ineffective that our vessels were scarcely 
touched, and only three men were wounded in the 
whole of Jellicoe's main Fleet. By nine o'clock 
both Beatty and Jellicoe were far down the Jutland 
coast, and had turned towards the south-west 
in the expectation that daylight would reveal to 
them the German Fleet in a favourable position 
for ending the business. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS 
AND REFLECTIONS 

Part II 

At the close of my previous Chapter I took a mean 
advantage of my readers. For I broke off at the 
most interesting and baffling phase in the whole 
Battle of the Giants. It was easy to write of the 
first two phases — the battle-cruiser action up to 
the turn where the Queen Mary and Indefatigable 
were lost, and the phase during which Beatty, 
though sorely weakened, gallantly headed off the 
German line, and Evan-Thomas, with his Fifth 
Battle Squadron, stalled off the Main High Seas 
Fleet in order to allow Beatty the time necessary 
for the execution of his manoeuvre, and Jellicoe the 
time to bring up the Grand Fleet. This second 
phase of the battle was perfectly planned and 
perfectly executed. It will always stand out in 
the pages of English Naval History as a classical 
example of English battle tactics. I could have 
described these two phases with much more of 
intimate detail had the Censor permitted, but 
perhaps I gave enough to make clear what was 
sought to be done and what was, in fact, achieved. 
When Jellicoe had deployed his potent squadrons, 
fitting them in between Evan-Thomas and Beatty 

288 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 289 

and curving round the head of the German line, 
which by then had turned back upon itself and 
taken the form of a closely knit spiral, the Germans 
appeared to be doomed. They were not enveloped 
in the strict sense of being surrounded — we were 
twice as strong as they were in numbers of modern 
ships and nearly three times as strong in effective 
gun power, yet we had not nearly sufficient numbers 
actually to surround them. A complete envelop- 
ment of an enemy fleet rarely, if ever, occurs at sea. 
But though Admiral Scheer was not surrounded 
he was in the most imminent peril of destruction. 
Jellicoe and Beatty were between his ships and the 
Jutland Coast, and as they pressed towards the 
south and west were pushing him away from the 
Wet Triangle and the security of his home bases. 
We had him outmanoeuvred and beaten, but we 
did not destroy him. Why was that? 

No question is more difficult to answer fairly and 
truthfully. I have discussed this third critical 
phase of the battle with a great many officers who 
were present — and in a position to see what hap- 
pened — and with a great many who, though not 
present, had means of informing themselves upon 
essential details. I have studied line by line 
the English and German dispatches and have 
paid more regard to what they do not tell than to 
what they do tell. It is stupid to reject Admiral 
Scheer's dispatch as fiction; it is not, but it is 
coloured with the purpose of making the least of his 
tactical defeat and the most of his very skilful 
escape. Jellicoe's dispatch is also coloured. I do 
not doubt that the statements contained in it are 
strictly true, but there are obvious omissions. 
By a process of examination and inquiry I have 



290 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

arrived at an answer to my question. I put it 
forward in all deference, for though I am of the 
Navy in blood and spirit, and have studied it all 
my life, yet I am a layman without sea training in 
the Service. 

The first point essential to an understanding is 
that Jellicoe's deployment was not complete until 
late in the afternoon, 6.17 p.m. G.M.T., that the 
evening was misty, and the " visibility" poor. 
Had the encounter between Beatty's and Hipper's 
battle cruisers occurred two hours earlier, and had 
Jellicoe come into action at 4.15 instead of 6.15, 
one may feel confident that there would not now 
be any High Seas German Fleet, that we could, 
since May 31st, 1916, have maintained a close 
blockade with fast light craft of the German North 
Sea and Baltic bases, and that the U-boat activity, 
which still threatens our sea communications and 
has had a profound influence on the progress of the 
war, would never have been allowed by us to 
develop. Upon so little, two hours of a day in late 
spring, sometimes hangs the fate of nations. 

The afternoon was drawing towards evening; the 
light was poor, the German lines had curved away 
seeking safety in flight. But there remained con- 
fronting us Hipper's battle cruisers and Scheer's 
faster battleships, supported by swarms of torpedo 
craft. We also had our destroyers, many of them, 
and light cruisers. There was one chance of safety 
open to Scheer, and he took it with a judgment 
in design and a skill in execution which marks him 
out as a great sea captain. His one chance was 
so to fend off and delay Jellicoe and Beatty by 
repeated torpedo attacks driven home, that the 
big English ships would not be able to close in 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 291 

upon the main German Fleet and destroy it by- 
gun-fire while light remained to give a mark to the 
gunners. And so Scheer decided to "attack," and 
did attack. In his dispatch he deliberately gives 
the impression — for the comfort and gratification 
of German readers — that he successfully attacked 
our Grand Fleet with his main High Seas Fleet. 
He was no fool of that sort. He attacked, but it 
was with torpedo craft supported by Hipper's 
battle cruisers. 

The range of a modern torpedo, the range at 
which it may occasionally be effective, is not far 
short of 12,000 yards, about seven land miles. 
This, when the visibility is low, is about the extreme 
effective range for heavy guns. The guns can shoot 
much farther, twice as far, when the gunners or 
the fire directors up aloft can see; but gunnery 
without proper light is a highly wasteful and in- 
effective business. At the range — usually about 
12,000 yards, though sometimes coming down to 
9,000 yards — to which the German torpedo attacks 
forced Jellicoe and Beatty to keep out, only some 
four or five enemy ships in the van could be seen at 
once; more of the rear squadron could be seen, 
though never more than eight or twelve. Our 
marks were usually not the hulls of the enemy's ships 
but the elusive flashes of his guns. Scheer used his 
torpedo craft in exactly the same way as a skilful 
land General — in the old days of open fighting — 
used his cavalry during a retreat. He used them 
to cover by repeated charges, sometimes of single 
flotillas, at other times of heavily massed squadrons, 
the retirement of his main forces. 

If, therefore, we combine the factor of low 
visibility and the approach of sunset, with the other 



292 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

factor of the long range of the modern torpedo, we 
begin to understand why Jellicoe and Beatty were 
not able to close in upon their enemy and wipe him 
off the seas. From the English point of view the 
third phase — that critical third phase to which the 
first and second phases had led up and which, under 
favourable circumstances, would have ended with 
the destruction of the German Fleet — found us in 
the position of a "following" or " chasing" fleet. 
But from the German point of view the same phase 
found their fleet in the position of "attackers." I 
have shown how these points of view can be recon- 
ciled, for while the main German Fleet was intent 
upon getting away and our main fleet was intent 
upon following it up and engaging it, the German 
battle cruisers, supported by swarms of torpedo 
craft, were fighting a spirited rearguard action and 
attacking us continually. The visibility was poor 
and mist troubled both sides. But the escape of 
the Germans was not wholly due to the difficulty of 
seeing them distinctly. If we could have closed in 
we should have seen his ships all right; we did not 
close in because the persistence and boldness of his 
torpedo attacks prevented us. 

The third phase, which lasted from 6.17 p.m. until 
8.20 p.m., was fought generally at about 12,000 
yards, though now and then the range came down 
to 9,000 yards. The Germans, fending us off 
with torpedo onslaughts, did their utmost to open 
out the ranges and used smoke screens to lessen 
what visibility the atmosphere permitted. Their 
gun-fire was so poor and ineffective that Jellicoe's 
Main Fleet was barely scratched and three men only 
were wounded. But we cannot escape from the 
conclusion that Scheer's rearguard tactics were 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 293 

successful, he did fend Jellicoe off and kept him from 
closing, and he did withdraw the bulk of his fleet 
from the jaws which during two hours were seeking 
to close upon it. He made two heavy destroyer 
attacks, during one of which the battleship Marl- 
borough was hit but was able to get back to dock 
under her own steam. The third phase of the 
Jutland Battle was exactly like a contest between 
two boxers — one heavy and the other light — being 
fought in an open field without ropes. The little 
man, continually side-stepping and retreating, kept 
the big man off; the big man could not close for 
fear of a sudden jab in his vital parts, and there 
were no corners to the ring into which the evasive 
light weight could be driven. 

If one applies this key to the English and German 
descriptions of the third phase in the Jutland Battle 
one becomes able to reconcib them, and becomes 
able to understand why the immensely relieved 
Germans claim their skilful escape as a gift from 
Heaven. They do not in their dispatches claim 
to have defeated Jellicoe, except in the restricted 
sense of having foiled his purpose of compassing 
their destruction. They got out of the battle very 
cheaply, whatever may have been their actual losses. 
This they realise as plainly as we do. Relief shines 
out of every line of their official story and is com- 
pressed, without reserve, into its concluding sen- 
tence. "Whoever had the fortune to take part in 
the battle will joyfully recognise with a thankful 
heart that the protection of the Most High was 
with us. It is an old historical truth that fortune 
favours the brave." 

I am afraid that I can do little to elucidate the 



294 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

fourth phase of the Battle of the Giants — the night 
scrimmage (one cannot call it a battle) during 
which our destroyers were seeking out the enemy 
ships in the darkness and plugging holes into them 
at every opportunity. And that dawn upon June 
1st, of which so much was hoped and from which 
nothing was realised? Who can describe that? 
Nothing that I can write would approach in sub- 
limity the German dispatch. Consider what the 
situation was. Jellicoe and Beatty had worked 
far down the Jutland coast and had partially edged 
their way between Scheer and the German bases. 
Their destroyers had sought out the German ships, 
found them and loosed mouldies at them, lost them 
again and found them again; finally had lost them 
altogether. At dawn the visibility was even lower 
than during the previous evening — only three to 
four miles — our destroyers were out of sight and 
touch and did not rejoin till 9 o'clock. No enemy 
was in sight, and after cruising about until 11 o'clock 
Jellicoe was forced to the conclusion that Scheer 
had got away round his far-stretching horns and 
was even then threading the mine fields which 
protected his ports of refuge. There was no more 
to be done, and the English squadrons, robbed of 
the prey upon which they had set their clutches, 
steamed off towards their northern fastnesses. 
There the fleet fuelled and replenished with ammuni- 
tion, and 9.30 a.m. on June 2nd was reported 
ready for action. The German description of that 
dawn is a masterpiece in the art of verbal camou- 
flage: "As the sun rose upon the morning of the 
historic First of June in the eastern sky, each one 
of us expected that the awakening sun would 
illumine the British line advancing to renew the 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 295 

battle. This expectation was not realized. The 
sea all round, so far as the eye could see, was 
empty. One of our airships which had been sent up 
reported, later in the morning, having seen twelve 
ships of a line-of-battle squadron coming from the 
southern part of the North Sea holding a northerly 
course at great speed. To the great regret of all it 
was then too late for our fleet to intercept and 
attack them." The British Fleet, which the writer 
regretted not to see upon the dawn of a long day 
in late spring, was of more than twice the strength 
of his own. It would have had sixteen hours of 
daylight within which to devour him; yet he 
regretted its absence! The Germans must be a 
very simple people, abysmally ignorant of the sea 
if this sort of guff stimulates their vanity. 



In war the moral is far greater than the material, 
the psychological than the mechanical. One can- 
not begin to understand the simplest of actions 
unless one knows something of the spirit of the 
men who fight them. In sea battles, more than in 
contests upon land, events revolve round the 
personalities of the leaders and results depend upon 
the skill with which these leaders have gauged the 
problem set them, and dispose their forces to meet 
those varying phases which lead up to a conclusion. 
It is borne in upon us by hard experience that the 
southern part of the North Sea is not big enough 
and not deep enough to afford space for a first-class 
naval battle to be fought out to the finish. The 
enemy is too near his home bases, he can break off 
an action and get away before being overwhelmed. 
Yet even in the southern North Sea there is room 



296 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

in which to dispose great naval forces and in which 
to manoeuvre them. Fleets are not tucked up by 
space as are modern armies. Jutland was a battle of 
encounter and manoeuvre, not of heavy destructive 
fighting. There was a dainty deftness about the 
first two phases which is eminently pleasing to 
our national sea pride, and however we may growl 
at the tactical incompleteness of the battle we 
cannot but admit that, taken as a whole, it was 
as strategically decisive an action as has ever 
been fought by the English Navy throughout its 
long history. It re-established the old doctrine, 
which the course of the Sea War has tended to thrust 
out of sight, that Command of the Sea rests as 
completely as it always has done in the past upon 
the big fighting ships of the main battle line. Upon 
them everything else depends; the operations of 
destroyers and light cruisers, of patrols and even 
of submarines. For upon big ships depends the 
security of home bases. Surface ships alone can 
occupy the wide spaces of the sea and can hold 
securely the ports in one's own country and the 
ports which are ravished from an enemy. Sub- 
marines are essentially raiders, their office is the 
obstruction of sea communications, but submarines 
are useless, even for their special work of obstruc- 
tion, unless they can retire, refit, and replenish stores 
at bases made secure by the existence in effective 
being of a strong force of big fighting ships. Had 
Jutland been as great a tactical success as it was a 
strategical success, had it ended with the wiping out 
of the German High Seas Fleet, then, as I have 
already stated, the U-boat menace would have been 
scotched by the destruction of the protecting screen 
behind which the U-boats are built, refitted, and 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 297 

replenished. No small part of the German relief 
at the issue of Jutland is due to their realisation 
of this naval truth. They express that realisation 
in a sentence which contains the whole doctrine of 
the efficacy of the big ship as the final determinant 
in naval warfare. Admiral Scheer in his dispatch 
declared that the Battle of May 31st, 1916, " con- 
firmed the old truth that the large fighting ship, 
the ship which combines the maximum of strength 
in attack and defence, rules the seas." They do 
not claim that the English superiority in strength — 
which they place at "roughly two to one" — was 
sensibly reduced by our losses in the battle, nor 
that the large English fighting ships — admittedly 
larger, more numerous, and more powerfully gunned 
than their own — ceased after Jutland to rule the 
seas. The German claim, critically considered, 
is simply that in the circumstances it was a very 
lucky escape for the German ships. And so indeed 
it was. It left them with the means of securing 
their bases from which could be carried on the 
U-boat warfare against our mercantile communica- 
tions at sea. 

When the day arrives for the veil which at present 
enshrouds naval operations to be lifted, and details 
can be discussed freely and frankly, a whole litera- 
ture will grow up around the Battle of the Giants. 
Strategically, I repeat — even at the risk of becoming 
tedious — it was a great success, both in its inception 
and in its practical results. Tactically its success 
was not complete. The Falkland Islands and 
Coronel actions were by comparison simple affairs 
of which all essential details are known. Jutland, 
from six o'clock in the evening of May 31st until 
dawn upon June 1st, when the opposing fleets had 



298 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

completely lost touch, the one with the other, is a 
puzzling confusing business which will take years 
of discussion and of elucidation wholly to resolve — 
if ever it be fully resolved. If any one be per- 
mitted to describe the three actions in a few words 
apiece one would say that Coronel was both strate- 
gically and tactically a brilliant success for the 
Germans. Von Spee concentrated his squadron 
outside the range of our observation, placed himself 
in a position of overwhelming tactical advantage, 
and won a shattering victory. At the Falkland 
Islands action we did to Von Spee exactly what he 
had done to us at Coronel. This time it was the 
English concentration which was effected outside 
the German observation, and it was the German 
squadron which was wiped out when the tactical 
clash came. The first two phases of Jutland were, 
in spite of our serious losses in ships, notable tactical 
successes; they ended with Beatty round the head 
of the German Fleet and Jellicoe deployed in mas- 
terly fashion between Beatty and Evan-Thomas. 
Then we get the exasperating third phase, in which 
the honours of skilful evasion rest with the Germans, 
and the fourth or night phase, during which con- 
fusion became worse confounded until all touch was 
lost. And yet, in spite of the tactical failure of the 
third and fourth phases, the battle as a whole was so 
great a success that it left us with an unchallenge- 
able command of the sea — a more complete com- 
mand than even after Trafalgar. The Germans 
learned that they could not fight us in the open with 
the smallest hope of success. One of the direct fruits 
of Jutland was the intensified U-boat warfare against 
merchant shipping. The Germans had learned in 
the early part of the war that they could not wear 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 299 

down our battleship strength by under-water 
attacks; they learned at Jutland that they could 
not place their battleships in line against ours and 
hope to survive; nothing was left to them except 
to prey upon our lines of sea communication. And 
being a people in whose eyes everything is fair in war 
— their national industry — they proceeded to make 
the utmost of the form of attack which remained 
to them. Viewed, therefore, in its influence upon 
the progress of the war, the Battle of Jutland was 
among the most momentous in our long sea history. 
I have discussed the Battle of the Giants so often, 
and so remorselessly, with many officers who were 
present and many others who though not present 
were in a position to know much which is hidden 
from onlookers, that I fear lest I may have worn 
out their beautiful patience. There are two out- 
standing figures, Beatty and Jellicoe, about whose 
personalities all discussion of Jutland must revolve. 
They are men of very different types. Beatty is 
essentially a fighter; Jellicoe is essentially a student. 
In power of intellect and in knowledge of his pro- 
fession Jellicoe is a dozen planes above Beatty. 
And yet when it comes to fighting, in small things 
and in great, Beatty has an instinct for the right 
stroke at the right moment, which in war is beyond 
price. Whether in peace or in war, Jellicoe would 
always be conspicuous among contemporaries; 
Beatty, unless war has given him the stage upon 
which to develop his flair for battle, would not have 
stood out. He got early chances, in the Soudan 
and in China; he seized them both and rushed up 
the ladder of promotion. He was promoted so 
quickly that he outstripped his technical education. 
As a naval strategist and tactician Jellicoe is the 



300 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

first man in his profession ; Beatty is by professional 
training neither a strategist nor a tactician — he was 
a commander at twenty-seven and a captain at 
twenty-nine — but give him a fighting problem to be 
solved out in the open with the guns firing, and he 
will solve it by sheer instinctive genius. In the 
Battle of Jutland both Beatty and Jellicoe played 
their parts with consummate skill; Beatty was in 
the limelight all through, while Jellicoe was off the 
stage during the first two acts. Yet Jellicoe's part 
was incomparably the more difficult, for upon 
him, though absent, the whole issue of the battle 
depended. His deployment by judgment and 
instinct — sight was withheld from him by the 
weather — was perfect in its timing and precision. 
He should have been crowned with the bays of a 
complete Victor, but the Fates were unkind. He 
was robbed of his prey when it was almost within 
his jaws. Do not be so blind and foolish as to 
depreciate the splendid skill and services of Lord 
Jellicoe. 



I find the writing of this second Chapter upon the 
Battle of the Giants a very difficult job. Twice I 
have tried and failed; this is the result of the third 
effort. My failures have been used to light the 
fires of my house. Even now I am deeply conscious 
of the inadequacy of my tentative reflections. 
Upon so many points one has not the data; upon 
so many others one is not allowed — no doubt 
properly — yet still not allowed to say what one 
knows. Though sometimes I write grave articles, 
many of my readers know that by instinct I am a 
story-teller, and to me narrative by dialogue comes 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 301 

more readily than a disquisition. Therefore, if you 
will permit me, I will cast the remaining portion 
of this chapter into the form of dialogue and make 
of it a discussion between two Admirals, a Captain, 
and myself. One of these Admirals I will call a 
Salt Horse, a man who has seen service during half 
a century but who has not specialised in a technical 
branch such as gunnery, or navigation, cr tor- 
pedoes. A Salt Horse is an all-round sailor. The 
other Admiral I will call a Maker, and regard him 
as a highly competent technical officer in the design 
and construction of ships of war, of their guns, and 
of their armour. The Captain, a younger man, I 
will call a Gunner, one who has specialised in naval 
gunnery in all its branches, and one who knows 
the old methods and those which now are new and 
secret. These officers have not been drawn by 
me from among my own friends. They are not 
individuals but are types. Any ' attempts which 
may be made at identifying them will fail and justly 
fail — for they do not exist as individuals. Let this 
be clearly understood. They are creations of my 
own; I use them to give a sense of vividness to 
a narrative which tends to become tedious, and 
to bring out features in the Battle of Jutland 
which cannot without impertinence be presented 
directly by one, like myself, who is not himself a 
naval officer. 

Bennet Copplestone, an intrusive and persistent 
fellow, begins the conference by inquiring whether 
Beatty had, in the professional judgment of his 
brother officers, deserved Admiral Jellicoe's praise 
of his "fine qualities of gallant leadership, firm 
determination, and correct strategic insight." Was 
he as good as his public reputation? I knew, I said, 



302 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

a good deal too much of the making of newspaper 
reputations and had come to distrust them. 

"Beatty is a real good man," declared the Maker. 
"He sticks his cap on one side and loves to be 
photographed looking like a Western American 
'tough.' But under all this he conceals a fine 
naval head and the sturdiest of hearts. He is a 
first-class leader of men. I had my own private 
doubts of him until this Jutland Battle, but now 
I will take off my hat in his presence though he is 
my junior." 

The Maker's colleagues nodded approval. 

"There was nothing much in the first part," 
went on the Maker. "Any of us could have done 
it. His pursuit of the German battle cruisers up to 
their junction with the High Seas Fleet was a 
reconnaissance in force, which he was able to carry 
through without undue risk, because he had behind 
him the Fifth Battle Squadron. His change of 
course then through sixteen points was the only 
possible manoeuvre in order to bring his fleet back 
towards Jellicoe and to lead the Germans into the 
trap prepared for them. So far Beatty had done 
nothing to distinguish him from any competent 
fleet leader. Where he showed greatness was in 
not diverging by a hair's breadth from his plans 
after the loss of the Indefatigable and the Queen 
Mary. Mind you, these losses were wholly un- 
expected, and staggering in their suddenness. 
He had lost these fine ships while fighting battle 
cruisers fewer in numbers and less powerful in guns 
than his own squadrons. A weaker man might 
have been shaken in nerve and lost confidence in 
himself and his ships. But Beatty did not hesitate. 
Although he was reduced in strength from six battle 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 303 

cruisers to four only he dashed away to head off 
the Germans as serenely as if he had suffered no 
losses at all. And his splendid dash had nothing 
in it of recklessness. All the while he was heading 
off the Germans he was manoeuvring to give himself 
the advantage of light and to avoid the dropping 
shots which had killed his lost cruisers. All the 
while he kept between the Germans and Jellicoe 
and within touch of his supporting squadron of 
four Queen Elizabeths. Had he lost more ships 
he could at any moment have broken off the action 
and, sheltered by the massive Fifth B.S., have 
saved what remained. As a mixture of dash and 
caution I regard his envelopment of the German 
line, after losing the Queen Mary and Indefatigable, 
as a superb exhibition of sound battle tactics and 
of sublime confidence in himself and his men. But 
I /wish that he would not wear his cap on one side 
or talk so much. He has modified both these 
ill-practices since he became Commander-in-Chief. 
That is one comfort." 

"Nelson was a poseur," said I, "and as theatrical 
as an elderly and ugly prima donna. He posed to 
the gallery in every action, and died, as it were, 
to the accompaniment of slow music. It was an 
amiable weakness." 

"Jellicoe doesn't pose," growled the Maker. 

"Jellicoe hates advertisement," I observed. 
"Whenever he used to talk to the gangs of news- 
paper men who infested the Grand Fleet, he always 
implored them to spare his own shrinking person- 
ality. It is a matter of temperament. Jellicoe 
is a genuinely modest man; Beatty is a vain one. 
They form a most interesting contrast. Life would 
be duller without such contrasts. One could give 



304 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

a score of examples from military and naval history 
of high merit allied both to modesty and vanity." 

"That is true," said the Maker, "but the Great 
Silent Sea Service loathes advertisement like the 
very devil, and it is right. The Service would be 
ruined if senior officers tried to bid against one 
another for newspaper puffs." 

"Yet I have known them do it," said I drily, and 
then slid away from the delicate topic. "Let us 
return to the first part of the action, and examine 
the division of the Fleet between Jellicoe and 
Beatty. Was this division, admittedly hazardous, 
a sound method of bringing the Germans to 
action?" 

The Gunner took upon himself to reply. 

"It is not, and never has been, possible to bring 
the Germans to action in the southern part of the 
North Sea except with their own consent. There 
is no room. They can always break off and retire 
within their protected waters. Steam fleets of the 
modern size and speed cannot force an action and 
compel it to be fought out to a finish in a smaller 
space than a real ocean. You must always think 
of this when criticising the division of our fleets. 
Beatty was separated from Jellicoe by nearly sixty 
miles, and strengthened by four fast Queen Eliza- 
beth battleships to enable him to fight an action 
with a superior German Fleet. He was made 
just strong enough to fight and not too strong to 
scare the Germans away. In theory, the division 
of our forces within striking distance of the enemy 
was all wrong; in practice, it was the only way of 
persuading him into an action. Both sides at the 
end of May, 1916, wanted to bring off a fight at sea. 
Fritz wanted something which he could claim as a 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 305 

success in order to cheer up his blockaded grumblers 
at home, who were getting restive. We wanted to 
stop the projected German naval and military 
onslaught upon Russia in the Baltic. The wonder- 
ful thing about the Jutland Battle is that it appears 
to have achieved both objects. Fritz, by sinking 
three of our battle cruisers, has been able to delude 
a nation of landsmen into accepting a highly 
coloured version of a great naval success; and we, 
by making a sorry mess of his main fleet, did in fact 
clear the northern Russian flank of a grave peril. 
The later Russian successes in the South were the 
direct result of Jutland, and without those successes 
the subsequent Italian, French, and British ad- 
vances could not have been pushed with anything 
like the effect secured. Regarded in this broad 
international way, the division of our fleets justified 
by its results the risks which it involved. What I 
don't understand is why we suffered so much in 
the first part of the action when Beatty had six 
battle cruisers and four battleships against five 
battle cruisers of the enemy. He lost the Indefati- 
gable and Queen Mary while he was in great superior- 
ity both of numbers and of guns. Then, when the 
German main fleet had come in, and he was carry- 
ing out an infinitely more hazardous operation in 
the face of a greater superior force, he lost nothing. 
If the Indefatigable and Queen Mary had been lost 
during the second hour before Jellicoe arrived I 
should have felt no surprise — we were then deliber- 
ately risking big losses — but during the first hour 
of fighting, when we had ten ships against five — 
and five much weaker individually than our ten — 
we lost two fine battle cruisers. I confess that I 
am beaten. It almost looks as if at the beginning 



306 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

the German gunners were better than ours, but that 
they went to pieces later. What do you think?" 
He turned to the Salt Horse, who spoke little, but 
very forcibly when he could be persuaded to open 
his lips. 

"Everyone with Beatty, to whom I have spoken," 
declared the Salt Horse, "agrees that the German 
gunnery was excellent at the beginning. We were 
straddled immediately and hit again and again 
while coming into action. Our gunners must have 
been a bit over-anxious until they settled down. 
We ought to have done something solid in a whole 
hour against five battle cruisers with our thirty- 
two 13.5-inch guns and thirty-two 15-inch. And 
yet no one claims more than one enemy ship on fire. 
That means nothing. The burning gas from one 
big shell will make the deuce of a blaze. There is 
no explanation of our losses in the first part, and 
of Fritz's comparative immunity, except the one 
which you, my dear Gunner, are very unwilling to 
accept. Fritz hit us much more often than we hit 
him. There you have it. I have spoken." Admiral 
Salt Horse, a most abstemious man, rang the bell 
of the club of which we were members, and ordered 
a whisky and soda. "Just to take the taste of that 
admission out of my mouth," he explained. 

The Maker of Ships and Guns smiled ruefully. 
"I have reckoned," said he, "that the Cats fired 
twenty rounds per gun during the first hour and 
the Queen Elizabeths ten. That makes 640 rounds 
of 13.5-inch shell and 320 rounds of 15-inch. Three 
per cent, of fair hits at the ranges, and in the condi- 
tions of light, would have been quite good. But 
did we score twenty-eight hits of big shell, or any- 
thing like it? If we had there would have been 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 307 

much more damage done than one battle cruiser 
on fire. The Salt Horse has spoken, and so have I. 
I also will wash the taste of it out of my mouth.' ' 

"You will admit," muttered the Gunner, "that 
in the second part, after Beatty and the Queen 
Elizabeths had turned, our control officers and long- 
service gunners came into their own? " 

"Willingly," cried Admiral Salt Horse. "Nothing 
could have been finer than the hammering which 
Evan-Thomas gave to the whole High Seas Fleet. 
And Beatty crumpled up his opposite numbers 
in first-class style. Our individual system, then, 
justified itself utterly. Fritz's mechanical control 
went to bits when the shells began to burst about his 
fat ears, but it was painfully good while it lasted. 
Give Fritz his due, Master Gunner, it's no use 
shutting our eyes to his merits." 

I had listened with the keenest interest to this 
interchange, for though I should not myself have 
ventured to comment upon so technical a subject as 
naval gunnery, I had subconsciously felt what the 
old Salt Horse had so bluntly and almost brutally 
expressed. 

"We have arrived, then, at this," observed I, 
slowly, "that during the first hour, up to the turn 
when the main High Seas Fleet joined up with 
Hipper's battle cruisers, our squadrons got the 
worst of it, though they were of twice Fritz's num- 
bers and of far more than twice his strength. It is a 
beastly thing for an Englishman to say, but really 
you leave me no choice. Though I hate whisky, 
I must follow the example set by my betters." 

The Master Gunner laughed. "In the Service," 
said he, "we learn from our mistakes. At the 
beginning we did badly on May 31st, but after- 



308 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

wards we profited by the lesson. What more could 
you ask? . . . Civilians," said he, aside to his 
colleagues, "seem to think that only English ships 
should be allowed to have guns or to learn how 
to use them." 

"Now we have given Fritz his due," said I, 
"let us get on to the second part of the battle, 
Act Two of the naval drama. You will agree that 
the handling of our damaged squadrons by Beatty 
and Evan-Thomas was magnificent, and that the 
execution done by us was fully up to the best 
English standards? " 

"Yes," replied the grim Salt Horse, to whom 
I had specially appealed. "We will allow both. 
Beatty's combination of dash and caution was 
beyond praise and the gunnery was excellent." 

"None of our ships were sunk, none were seriously 
hit," put in the Gunner. "On the other hand we 
certainly sank one German battle cruiser and one 
battleship, and very heavily damaged others. I 
don't know how many. I think that we must 
accept as proved that not many German ships of 
the battle line were sunk in any part of the action. 
When badly hit they fell out and retired towards 
home, which they could always do. During the 
second part both fleets were steaming away from 
the German bases, so that a damaged enemy ship 
had only to stop to be left behind in safety. A 
good many ships were claimed by our officers as 
sunk when they were known to have been damaged 
and had disappeared; but I feel sure that most of 
them had fallen out, not been sunk." 

"The outstanding feature," cried the Maker of 
Guns, "was the superiority of our gunnery. We 
have always encouraged individuality in gun laying, 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 309 

and have never allowed Fire Control to supersede 
the eyes and hands of the skilled gun-layers in the 
turrets. Control and individual laying are with us 
complementary, not mutually exclusive. With the 
Germans an intensely mechanical control is of 
the essence of their system. They are very good 
up to a point, but have not elasticity enough to 
deal with the perpetual variations of range and 
direction when fighting ships are moving fast and 
receiving heavy punishment. Fritz beat us in the 
first part, but we, as emphatically, beat him in 
the second." 

We then passed to a technical discussion upon 
naval gunnery, which cannot be given here in detail. 
I developed my thesis, aggravating to expert gun- 
ners, that when one passes from the one dimension — 
distance — of land shooting from a fixed gun at a 
fixed object, to the two dimensions — distance and 
direction — of moving guns on board ship firing 
at moving objects, the drop in accuracy is so enor- 
mous as to make ship gunnery frightfully ineffective 
and wasteful. I readily admitted that when one 
passed still further to three dimensions — distance, 
direction, and height — and essayed air gunnery, 
the wastefulness and ineffectiveness of shooting 
at sea were multiplied an hundredfold. But, as I 
pointed out, we were not at the moment discussing 
anti-aircraft gunnery, but the shooting of naval 
guns at sea in the Jutland Battle. 

Of course I brought down a storm upon my 
head. But my main thesis was not contested. It 
was, however, pointed out that I had not allowed 
sufficient weight to the inherent difficulties of 
shooting from a moving ship at a moving ship ten 
or a dozen miles away, and that instead of calling 



310 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

naval gunnery "wasteful and ineffective" I ought 
to be dumb with wonder that hits were ever brought 
off at all. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. 

"Don't be hard on the poor man," at last inter- 
posed the kindly Salt Horse. "He means well 
and can be useful to the Service sometimes though 
he has not had a naval training The truth is," 
he went on confidentially, "we feel rather wild 
about the small damage that we did to Fritz on 
May 31st: small, that is, in comparison with our 
opportunities. Our gunnery officers and gun-layers 
are the best in the world, our guns, range-finders 
and other instruments are unapproachable for 
precision, our system of fire direction is the best 
that naval brains can devise and is constantly being 
improved, and yet all through the war the result 
in effective hits has been most disappointing — 
don't interrupt, you people, I am speaking the 
truth for once. Fritz's shooting, except occasion- 
ally, has been even worse than ours, which indicates, 
I think, that the real inner problems of naval gun- 
nery are not yet in sight of solution. You see, it is 
quite a new science. In the old days one usually fired 
point blank just as one might plug at a haystack, 
and the extreme range was not more than a mile 
and a half; but now that every fighting ship carries 
torpedo tubes we must keep out a very long way. 
I admit the apparent absurdity of the situation. 
Here on May 31st, two fleets were engaged off and 
on for six hours — most of the time more off than on 
— and the bag for Fritz was three big ships, and for 
us possibly four, by gun-fire. The torpedo practice 
was no better except when our destroyers got in 
really close. During all the third part of the action, 
when Scheer was fending us off with torpedo 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 311 

attacks he hit only one battleship, the Marlborough, 
and she was able to continue in action afterwards 
and to go home under her own steam. Yet upon 
a measured range at a fixed mark a torpedo is good 
up to 11,000 yards, nearly six miles. In action, 
against moving ships, one cannot depend upon a 
mouldy hitting at over 500 yards, a quarter of a 
mile. If gunnery is wasteful and inefficient, what 
about torpedo practice in battle? " 

"What is the solution?" I asked, greatly 
interested. 

"Don't ask me!" replied the Salt Horse. "I 
knew something of gunnery once, but now I'm on 
the shelf. I myself would risk the mouldies a*nd 
fight at close quarters — we have the legs of Fritz 
and could choose our own range — but in-fighting 
means tremendous risks, and the dear stupid old 
public would howl for my head if the corresponding 
losses followed. The tendency at present is to- 
wards longer and longer ranges, up to the extreme 
visible limits, and the longer the range the greater 
the waste and inefficiency. Ask the Gunner there, 
he is more up-to-date than I am." 

The Master Gunner growled. He had listened to 
Admiral Salt Horse's homily with the gravest dis- 
approval. He was a simple loyal soul; any 
criticism which seemed to question the supreme 
competence of his beloved Service was to him rank 
treachery. Yet he knew that the Salt Horse was 
as loyal a seaman as he was himself. It was not 
what was said which caused his troubled feelings — 
he would talk as freely himself before his colleagues 
— but that such things should be poured into the 
ears of a civilian! It was horrible! 

"After the first hour, when our gunners had 



312 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

settled down," said he gruffly, "their practice was 
exceedingly good. They hit when they could see, 
which was seldom. If the light had been even 
tolerable no German ship would have got back to 
port." 

"I agree," cried the Maker of Guns and Ships. 
"We did as well as the light allowed. Fritz was 
all to pieces. The bad torpedo practice was Fritz's, 
not ours. The worst of the gunnery was his, too. 
We have lots to learn still — as you rightly say, naval 
gunnery is still in its infancy — but we have learned 
a lot more than anyone else has. That is the one 
thing which matters to me." 

"Have we not reached another conclusion," I 
put in, diffidently, "namely, that big-ship actions 
must be indecisive unless the light be good and the 
sea space wide enough to allow of a fight to a 
finish? We can't bring Fritz to a final action in the 
lower part of the North Sea unless we can cut him 
off entirely from his avenues of escape. In the 
Atlantic, a thousand miles from land, we could 
destroy him to the last ship — if our magazines held 
enough of shell — but as he can choose the battle 
ground, and will not fight except near to his bases, 
we can shatter him and drive him helpless into port, 
but we cannot wipe him off the seas. Is that 
proved? " 

'Yes," said the Gunner, who had recovered his 
usual serenity. "In my opinion that is proved 
absolutely." 

"One talks rather loosely of envelopment," 
explained the Maker, "as if it were total instead 
of partial. The German Fleet was never enveloped 
or anything like it. What happened was this: 
As the Germans curved away in a spiral to the 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 313 

south-west our line curved in with them, roughly- 
parallel, also to the south-west, keeping always 
between Fritz and the land. We were partly 
between him and his bases, but he could and did 
escape by getting round the horn which threatened 
to cut him off." 

"Could not Jellicoe," I asked, "have worked 
right round so as to draw a line across the mouths 
of the Elbe and Weser, and to cut Scheer com- 
pletely off from the approaches to Wilhelmshaven? " 

"Not without immense risk. He would have 
had to pass into mine fields and penetrate them all 
through the hours of darkness. He might have 
lost half his fleet. Our trouble has always been 
the extravagant risk involved by a close pursuit. 
When the Germans retire to their protected waters 
we must let them go. The Grant' Fleet is too vital 
a force to be needlessly risked. When Jellicoe's 
final stroke failed, owing to the bad light and the 
German retirement, the battle was really over. 
Jellicoe's blow had spent itself on the air. The 
Germans were almost safe except from our torpedo 
attacks, which were delivered during the night with 
splendid dash and with considerable success. But 
that night battle was the queerest business. When 
the sun rose the enemy had vanished. Fritz says 
that we had vanished. I suppose, strictly speaking, 
that we had. At least we were out of his sight, 
though unintentionally. Touch had been lost and 
the enemy had got safely home, taking most of his 
damaged ships with him. Nothing remained for 
us to do except to return to our northern bases, 
recoal, and refit. The Jutland Battle was indecisive 
in one sense, crushingly decisive in another. It left 
the German Fleet undestroyed, but left it impotent 



314 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

as a fighting force. Thereafter it sank into a mere 
guard for Fritz's submarine bases." 

"And the gunnery in the third part?" I asked 
with a sly glance towards the Gunner. He rose 
at the bait. 

"I do not doubt that, measured by the per- 
centage of hits to rounds fired, Copplestone would 
call it wasteful and inefficient. But the Navy 
regards the gunnery in the third part as even better 
than in the second, as proving our superiority over 
the Germans. They were then at their worst while 
we were at our best; we rapidly improved under 
the test of battle, they as rapidly deteriorated. 
The facts are certain. The enemy ships were hit 
repeatedly both by our battleships and battle 
cruisers, several were seen to haul out of the line 
on fire, and at least one battleship was observed to 
sink. Throughout all the time — two hours — dur- 
ing which Jellicoe's main fleet was engaged his 
ships were scarcely touched; not a single man was 
killed, and three only were wounded. Is that not 
good enough for you? " 

"You have forgotten the Invincible/' remarked 
that candid critic whom I have called Salt Horse. 
"She took station at the head of Beatty's line at 
6.21. Her distance from the enemy was then 
8,000 yards. It was a gallant service, for Beatty 
needed support very badly, but by 6.55 the Invin- 
cible had been destroyed. The Iron Duke passed 
her floating bottom up. She must have been caught 
by the concentrated fire of several enemy ships. 
It was a piece of luck for Fritz; the last that he 
had. Apart from the downing of the Invincible, I 
agree that the third part of the battle showed our 
gunnery to be highly effective, and that of the 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 315 

Germans to be almost wholly innocuous. It was 
his torpedoes we had then to fear, not his guns." 
" During the third part," said the Maker, "the 
ranges were comparatively low, from 9,000 to 
12,000 yards, but the visibility was so bad that 
damaged ships could always betake themselves out 
of sight and danger. I am disposed to think that 
most of Fritz's sorely damaged ships did get home 
— in the absence of evidence that they did not — 
for we never really closed in during the whole of 
the third part of the battle. Fritz was continually 
coming and going, appearing and disappearing. 
His destroyer attacks were well delivered, and 
though one battleship only was hit, our friend the 
Marlborough, we were kept pretty busy looking 
after ourselves. Jellicoe was like a heavy-weight 
boxer trying to get home upon a little man, skipping 
about just beyond his reach. We had the speed 
and the guns and the superiority of position, but 
we couldn't see. That is the explanation of the 
indecisiveness of the third part of the Jutland 
battle, that part which, with decent luck, would 
have ended Fritz's business. Our gunnery was 
then top-hole. Take the typical case of the flagship 
Iron Duke. She got a sight of a Koenig at 12,000 
yards (seven miles), straddled her at once, and 
began to hit at the second salvo. That is real 
gunnery, not much waste about it either of time or 
shell. Then towards sunset the Lion, Princess 
Royal, and New Zealand engaged two battleships 
and two battle cruisers at 10,000 yards. Within 
eighteen minutes three of the Germans had been set 
on fire, two were listing heavily, and the three 
burning ones were only saved by becoming hidden 
in smoke and mist. That is the way to get on to a 



316 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

target and to hold on. I agree with our old friend 
Salt Horse that the long ranges during the first 
part of the action, 18,000 to 20,000 yards — and 
even more for the Queen Elizabeths — are alto- 
gether too long for accuracy unless the conditions 
are perfect. The distances are well within the 
power of the big-calibre guns which we mount, 
but are out of harmony with the English naval 
spirit. We like to see our enemy distinctly and to 
get within real punishing distance of him. Com- 
pare our harmless performance during the first 
part with the beautiful whacking which we gave 
Fritz in the third whenever we could see him. 
The nearer we get to Fritz the better our gunners 
become and the more completely his system goes to 
bits. Which is just what one would expect. Our 
long-service gunners can lay by sight against any 
ships in the world and beat them to rags, but when 
it comes to blind laying directed from the spotting 
tops much of the advantage of individual nerve 
and training is lost. Like Salt Horse, I am all for 
in-fighting, at 10,000 yards or less, and believe that 
our gun-layers can simply smother Fritz if they are 
allowed to get him plainly on the wires of their 
sighting telescopes." 

"There is not a petty officer gun-layer who 
wouldn't agree with you," remarked the Gunner 
thoughtfully, "but the young scientific Gunnery 
Lieutenants would shake their heads. For what 
would become of the beautiful fire-direction system 
which they have been building up for years past if 
we are to run in close and pound in the good old 
fashion? Ten thousand yards to a modern 15-inch 
gun is almost point blank." 

"Our business is to sink the enemy in the shortest 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 317 

possible time," cried Admiral Salt Horse, "and to 
fight in the fashion best suited to what Copplestone 
here rightly calls the Soul of the Navy. Long- 
range righting is all very well when one can't do 
anything else — during a chase, for example — but 
when one can close in to a really effective distance, 
then, I say, close in and take the risks. In the 
Jutland Battle we lost two battle cruisers at long 
range and one only after the ranges had shortened. 
Fritz shot well at long range, but got worse and 
worse as we drew nearer to him, until at the end his 
gunnery simply did not count. Our ancestors had 
a similar problem to solve, and solved it at the 
Battle of the Saints in brutal fashion by breaking 
the French line and fighting at close quarters. 
There is a lot to be learned from the Jutland Battle, 
though it is not for an old dog like me to draw the 
lessons. But what does seem to shout at one is 
that the way to fight a German is to close in upon 
him and to knock the moral stuffing out of him. 
The destroyers always do it and so do our sub- 
marines. I am told that the way the destroyers 
charged battleships by night, and rounded up the 
enemy's light stuff by day, was a liberal education 
in naval psychology. We are at our best when the 
risks are greatest — it is the sporting instinct of the 
race that sustains us. But Fritz, who is no sports- 
man, and has a good deal more of imagination than 
our lower deck, cracks when the strain upon his 
nerves passes the critical point. Our young officers 
and men have no nerves; Fritz has more than is 
good for him; let us take advantage of his moral 
weakness and hustle him beyond the point when 
he cracks. He is a landsman artificially made into 
a seaman; our men are seamen born. In a battle- 



318 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

ship action the personal factor tends to be over- 
borne by the immensity of the fighting instruments, 
but it is there all the time and is the one thing which 
really counts. We give it full scope in the de- 
stroyers, submarines, and light cruisers; let us give 
it full scope in the big ships of the battle line. Let 
our Men get at Fritz; don't seek to convert them 
into mere parts of a machine, give their individu- 
ality the fullest play; you need then have no fear 
lest their work should prove wasteful or ineffective." 

The Master Gunner, a man ten years younger 
than old Salt Horse, smiled and said, "I am afraid 
that the gunnery problem has become too com- 
plicated to yield to your pleasing solution. A few 
years ago it would have been considered a futile 
waste of shell to fight at over 10,000 yards, but the 
growth in the size of our guns and in our methods of 
using them have made us at least as accurate at 
20,000 yards as we used to be at 10,000. At from 
9,000 to 12,000 in good light we are now terrific. 
All my sympathies are on your side; the Navy 
has always loved to draw more closely to the 
enemy, and maybe our instincts should be our guide. 
I can't say. If we could have a big-ship action 
every month the problem would soon be solved. 
Our trouble is that we don't get enough of the Real 
Thing. You may be very sure that if our officers 
and men were told to run in upon Fritz and to 
smash him, at the ranges which are now short, they 
would welcome the order with enthusiasm. The 
quality and training of our sea personnel is glorious, 
incomparable. I live in wonder at it." 

"And so do I," cried the Maker, a man not ready 
to display enthusiasm. "One has lived with the 
professional Navy so long that one comes to take 



THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS 319 

its superb qualities for granted; one needs to see 
the English Navy in action to be aroused to its 
merits. On May 31st very few of those in Evan- 
Thomas's or Jellicoe's squadrons had been under 
fire — Beatty's men had, of course, more than once. 
If they showed any defect it was due to some slight 
over-eagerness. But this soon passed. In a big- 
ship action not one man in a hundred has any oppor- 
tunity of personal distinction — which is an uncom- 
monly good thing for the Navy. We have no use 
for pot-hunters and advertisers. We want every 
man to do his little bit, devotedly, perfectly, with- 
out any thought of attracting attention. Ours is 
team work. If men are saturated through and 
through with this spirit of common devotion to duty 
they sacrifice themselves as a matter of course when 
the call comes. More than once fire penetrated to 
the magazines of ships. The men who instantly 
rolled upon the blazing bags of cordite, and extin- 
guished the flames with their bodies, did not wait 
for orders nor did they expect to be mentioned in 
dispatches. It was just their job. But what I did 
like was Jellicoe's special mention of his engineers. 
These men, upon whose faithful efficiency every- 
thing depends, who, buried in the bowels of ships, 
carry us into action and maintain us there, who are 
the first to die when a ship sinks and the last to be 
remembered in Honours lists, these men are of more 
real account than almost all those others of us who 
prance in our decorations upon the public stage. 
If the conning tower is the brain of a ship, the 
engine-room is its heart. When Jellicoe was speed- 
ing up to join Beatty and Evan-Thomas his whole 
fleet maintained a speed in excess of the trial speeds 
of some of the older vessels. Think what skilful 



320 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

devotion this simple fact reveals, what minute 
attention day in day out for months and years, so 
that in the hour of need no mechanical gadget may 
fail of its duty. And as with Jellicoe's Fleet so all 
through the war. Whenever the engine-rooms have 
been tested up to breaking strain they have 
always, always, stood up to the test. I think less 
of the splendid work done by destroyer flotillas, 
by combatant officers and men in the big ships, by 
all those who have manned and directed the light 
cruisers. Their work was done within sight; that 
of the engine-rooms was hidden." 

"I wish that the big public could hear you," I 
said, "the big public whose heart is always in the 
right place though its head is always damned 
ignorant and often damned silly." 

The Maker of Guns and Ships turned on me, this 
calm, cold man whom I had thought a stranger to 
emotion. ' ' And whose fault is that? You are a bit 
of an ass, Copplestone, and inconveniently inquisi- 
tive. But you can be useful sometimes. When you 
come to write of the war at sea, do not wrap your- 
self up in a tangle of strategy and tactics of which 
you know very little. Stick to the broad human 
issues. Reveal the men who fight rather than the 
ships which are fought with. Think of the Navy 
as a Service of flesh and blood and soul, no less than 
of brains and heart. If you will do this, and write 
as well as you know how to do, the public will not 
remain either damned ignorant or damned silly." 

"I will do my best," said I, humbly. 



EPILOGUE 

LIEUTENANT CiESAR 

Now in the names of all the gods at once, 
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
That he is grown so great? 

When the war is over and tens of thousands of 
young men, who have drunk deep of the wine of life, 
are thrown back upon ginger ale, what will be the 
effect upon their heads and stomachs? I do not 
know; I have no data, except in the one instance 
of my friend, Lieutenant Caesar, R.N.V.R. 

I must write of him with much delicacy and 
restraint, for his friendship is too rich a privilege 
to be imperilled. His sense of humour is danger- 
ously subtle. Caesar is twenty-three, and I am — ■ 
well, fully twice his age — yet he bears himself as 
if he were infinitely my senior in years and experi- 
ence. And he is right. What in all my toll of 
wasted years can be set beside those crowded 
twenty-two months of his, now ended and done 
with? The fire of his life glowed during those 
months with the white intensity of an electric arc ; in 
a moment it went black when the current was cut off; 
he was left groping in the darkness for matches and 
tallow candles. I dare not sympathise with him 
openly, though I feel deeply, for he would laugh 
and call me a silly old buffer — a term which I dread 
above all others. 



321 



322 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

The variegated career of Lieutenant Caesar fills 
me with the deepest envy. When the war broke 
out he was a classical scholar at Oxford, one of the 
bright spirits of his year. His first in Greats, 
his prospects of the Ireland, his almost certain 
Fellowship — he threw them up. The Army had 
no interest for him, but to the Navy he was bound 
by links of family association. To the Navy there- 
fore he turned, and prevailed upon a somewhat 
reluctant Admiralty to gazette him as a Sub- 
Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. 
"A classical scholar," argued Whitehall, ''is about 
as much use to us as a ruddy poet. What can this 
young man do away from his books?" Caesar 
rapidly marshalled his poor accomplishments. He 
could row — no use, we are in the steam and petrol 
age; he had been a sergeant of O.T.C. — no thanks, 
try the Royal Naval Division; he could drive a 
motor-car and was a tolerable engineer. At last 
some faint impression was made. Did he under- 
stand the engines of a motor-boat? It appeared 
that he did; was, in fact, a mildly enthusiastic 
member of the Royal Motor Boat Club at South- 
ampton. "Now you're talking," said Whitehall. 
"Why didn't you say this at once instead of wasting 
our time over your useless frillings? " The official 
wheels stirred, and within two or three weeks Caesar 
found himself gazetted, and dropped into a fine 
big motor patrol boat, which the Admiralty had 
commandeered and turned to the protection of 
battleships from submarines. At that time we 
had not a safe harbour anywhere except on the 
South Coast, where they did not happen to be 
wanted. For many months Caesar patrolled by 
night and day deep cold harbours on the east 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT CAESAR 323 

coast of Scotland, hunting periscopes. It was an 
arduous but exhilarating service. His immediate 
chief, a Lieutenant R.N.V.R., was a benevolent 
American, the late owner of the boat. He had 
handed her over without payment in return for a 
lieutenant's commission. "I was once," he de- 
clared, "a two-striper in Uncle Sam's Navy. I 
got too rich for my health, chucked the Service, 
and have been eating myself out of shape. Take 
the boat but, for God's sake, give me the job of 
running her. She's too pretty for your thumb- 
crushing blacksmiths to spoil." When reminded 
that he was an alien, he treated the objection as 
the thinnest of evasive pleas. ''I haven't any use 
for that poor prune Woodrow," he wrote; "King 
George is my man; there are no diamonds in his 
garters." The Lords of the Admiralty, who never 
in their sheltered lives had read such letters as 
now poured in upon them, gasped, collapsed, and 
gave to the benevolent neutral all that he asked. 
Caesar worshipped the big motor-boat and her 
astonishing commander. His first love wrapped 
itself round the twin engines, two of them, six- 
cylinders each, 120 horse-power. They were ducks 
of engines which never gave any trouble, because 
Caesar and the two American engineers — I had 
almost written nurses — were always on the watch 
to detect the least whimper of pain. But though 
he never neglected his beloved engines, the mys- 
terious fascinations of the three-pounder gun in 
the bows gradually vanquished his mature heart. 
Her deft breech mechanism, her rapid loading, 
the sweet, kindly way she slipped to and fro in 
her cradle, became charms before which he suc- 
cumbed utterly. Caesar and the gun's high-priest, 



324 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

a petty officer gun-lay er, became the closest 
of friends, and the pair of them would spend hours 
daily cleaning and oiling their precious toy. The 
American lieutenant had his own bizarre notions of 
discipline — he thought nothing of addressing the 
petty officer as "old horse"; but he worked as 
hard as Caesar himself, kept everyone in the best of 
spirits through the vilest spells of weather, and was 
a perpetual fount of ingenious plans for the undoing 
of Fritz. The Mighty Buzzer — named from her 
throbbing exhaust — was a happy ship. 

The Buzzer's career as a king's ship was brief, 
and her death glorious. One night, or rather early 
morning, she was far out in the misty jaws of a 
Highland loch, within which temporarily rested 
many great battle-cruisers. Caesar despised these 
vast and potent vessels. "What use are they?" 
he would ask of his chief. "There is nothing for 
them to fight, and they would all have been sunk 
long ago but for us." Fast motor-boats, with 120 
horse-power engines, twenty-five knots of speed — 
thirty at a pinch, untruthfully claimed the Lieu- 
tenant — and beautiful 3-pounder guns were in 
Caesar's view, the last word in naval equipment. 
The Lieutenant would shake his head gravely at his 
Sub's exuberant ignorance. "They are gay old 
guys just now," he would reply, "and feeling pretty 
cheap. But some day they will get busy and knock 
spots off Fritz's hide. You Britishers are darned 
slow, but when you do fetch a gun it's time to shin 
up trees. The Germs have stirred up the British 
Lion real proper and, I guess, wish now they'd let 
him stay asleep." 

The Buzzer had chased many a German sub- 
marine, compelling it to dive deeply and become 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT CESAR 325 

harmless, but never yet had Caesar been privileged 
to see one close. Upon this misty morning of her 
demise, when he gained fame, she was farther out 
to sea than usual, and was cruising at about the spot 
where enterprising U-boats were wont to come up 
to take a bearing. I am writing of the days before 
our harbour defences had chilled their enterprise 
into inanition. Caesar was on watch, and stood at 
the wheel amidships. The petty officer and a blue- 
jacket were stationed at the gun forward. Our 
friend's senses were very much alert, for he took his 
duties with the utmost seriousness. Near his boat 
the sea heaved and swirled, and as he saw a queer 
wave pile up he became, if possible, even more alert 
and called to his watch to stand by. The sea went 
on swirling, the surface broke suddenly, and up 
swooped the hood and thin tube of a periscope. 
It was less than fifty yards away, and for a moment 
the lenses did not include the Buzzer within their 
field of vision. For Caesar, his watch on deck, and 
the sleepers below, the next few seconds were 
packed with incident. Round came the Buzzer 
pointing straight for the periscope, the exhaust 
roared as Caesar called for full speed, and the gun 
crashed out. Away went periscope and tube, 
wiped off by the spreading cone of the explosion, as 
if they were no more substantial than a bullrush, 
and up shot the Buzzer's bows as Caesar drove her 
keel violently upon the top of the conning tower 
of the rising U-boat. Keel and conning-tower 
ripped together; there was a tremendous rush of 
air-bubbles, followed by oil, and the U-boat was 
no more. She had gone, and the Buzzer, with six 
feet of her tender bottom torn off, was in the act to 
follow. As she cocked up her stern to dive after 



326 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

her prey there was just time to get officers and crew 
into lifebelts and to signal for help. Caesar met in 
the water his commanding officer, who, though 
nearly hurled through his cabin walls by the shock, 
and entirely ignorant of the cataclysm in which he 
had been involved, was cheerful as ever. "Sakes," 
he gasj)ed, when he had cleared mouth and nose of 
salt water, "when you Britishers do get busy, 
things — sort of — hum." 

A destroyer rushing down picked up the swimmers 
and heard their story. The evidence was con- 
sidered sufficient, for oil still spread over the sea, 
and there were no rocks within miles to have 
ripped out the Buzzer's keel, so another U-boat 
was credited to the Royal Navy and Caesar became 
a lieutenant. It was a proud day for him. 

But he had lost his ship, and was for a time out 
of a job. The new harbour defences were under 
way and fast motor-boars were for a while less in 
demand. The Admiralty solved the problem of 
his future. "This young man," it observed, "is 
nothing better than a temporary lieutenant of the 
Volunteer Reserve, but he is not wholly without 
intelligence and has a pretty hand with a gun. 
We will teach him something useful." So the order 
was issued that Lieutenant Caesar should proceed to 
Whale Island, there to be instructed in the mys- 
teries of naval gunnery. "You will have to work 
at Whale Island," warned the captain of his 
flotilla, "and don't you forget it. It is not like 
Oxford." This to reduce Caesar to the proper 
level of humility. 

Up to this stage in his career Lieutenant Caesar, 
though temporarily serving in the Royal Navy, 
knew nothing whatever about it. His status was 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT CAESAR 327 

defined for me once by a sergeant of Marines: 
"A temporary gentleman, sir, 'ere to-day and gone 
to-morrow, and good riddance, sir." Upon land the 
corps and regiments have been swamped by tem- 
poraries, but at sea the Regular Navy remains in 
full possession. In the barracks at Whale Island, 
where Csesar was assigned quarters, he felt like a 
very small schoolboy newly joining a very large 
school. His fellow-pupils were R.N.R. men, mer- 
cantile brass-bounders with mates' and masters' 
certificates, and R.N.V.R.'s drawn from diverse 
classes. To him they seemed a queer lot. He lay 
low and studied them, finding most of them wholly 
ignorant of everything which he knew, but pro- 
foundly versed in things which he didn't. The 
instructors of the Regular Service gave him his 
first definite contact with the Navy. "My original 
impression of them," he told me, laughing, "was 
that they were all mad. I had come to learn 
gunnery, but for a whole week they insisted upon 
teaching me squad drill, about the most derisory 
version of drill which I have ever seen. Picture 
us, a mob of mates out of liners and volunteers out 
of workshops and technical schools, trailing rifles 
round the square at Whale Island, feeling dazed 
and helpless, and wondering if we had brought up 
by mistake at a lunatic asylum. After the first 
week, during which Whale Island indulged its 
pathetic belief that its true metier is squad drill, 
we were all right. We got busy at the guns, and 
found plenty to learn." It was at Whale Island 
that he received the name of Csesar, the one Latin 
author of which his messmates had any recollection. 
During the first month of his training he daily 
cursed Winchester and Oxford for the frightful gaps 



328 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

which they had left in his educational equipment. 
He could acquire languages with anyone, but mathe- 
matics, that essential key to the mysteries of gun- 
nery, gave him endless trouble. But he had a keenly 
tempered brain and limitless persistence. Slowly 
at first, more rapidly later, he made up on his 
contemporaries, and when after two months of the 
toughest work of his life he gained a first-class 
certificate, he felt that at last he had tasted a real 
success. 

Time brings its revenges. As a Sub in a motor- 
boat he had affected to think slightingly of the 
great battle-cruisers which his small craft protected, 
but now that he was transferred to one of the new 
Cats of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron his views 
violently changed. Battleships were all very well, 
they had huge guns and tremendous armour, but 
when it came to speed and persistent aggressiveness 
what were these sea monsters in comparison with 
the Cats? Why nothing, of course. Which shows 
that Caesar was becoming a Navyman. Put a 
naval officer into the veriest tub which can keep 
herself afloat with difficulty, and steam five knots 
in a tideway, and he will exalt her into the most 
efficient craft beneath the White Ensign. For she 
is His Ship. 

Lieutenant Csesar very quickly became at one 
with his new ship, and entered into his kingdom. 
Whether upon the loading platform of a turret 
or in control of a side battery, he serenely took 
up his place and felt that he had expanded to fill it 
adequately. His tone became obtrusively pro- 
fessional. When I asked for some details of his 
hardships and his thrills, he sneered at me most 
rudely. "There are no hardships," he declared; 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT CESAR 329 

"we live and grow fat, and there is not a thrill to 
the whole war. My motor-boat was a desperate 
buccaneer in comparison with these stately Founts 
of Power. Every week or two we do a Silent Might 
parade in the North Sea, but nothing ever happens." 
This was after the Dogger Bank action for which 
he was too late, and before the Jutland Battle. 
He wrote to me many veiled accounts of the North 
Sea stunts upon which the battle-cruisers were per- 
sistently engaged, but always insisted that they 
were void of excitement. 

"Dismiss from your landsman's mind," he would 
write — Caesar was now a sailor among sailors — 
"all idea of thrills. There aren't any. When the 
hoist Prepare to Leave Harbour goes up on the 
flagship, and black smoke begins to pour from every 
funnel in the Squadron, there is no excitement and 
no preparation — for we are already fully prepared. 
We go out with our attendant destroyers and light 
cruisers and scour at will over the ' German Ocean ' 
looking for Fritz, that we may fall upon him. But 
he is too cunning for us. I wish that we had some 
scouting airships." 

This wish of Lieutenant Caesar is, I believe, shared 
by every officer in the Grand Fleet from the Com- 
mander-in-Chief downwards. Airships cannot fight 
airships or sea ships, and are of very little use as 
destructive agents, but they are bright gems in the 
firmament of scouts. 

I asked Caesar why he did not keep notes of his 
manifold experiences. "It is against orders," 
answered he sorrowfully. "We are not allowed 
to keep a diary, and I have a rotten memory for 



330 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

those intimate details which give life to a story. 
If I could keep notes I would set up in business as a 
naval Boyd Cable." But I am afraid that Caesar 
was reckoning without the Naval Censor, a savage, 
hungry lion beside whom his brother of the Mili- 
tary Department is a complacent lamb. Caesar 
has a pretty pen, but his hands are in shackles. 

Caesar bent his keen eyes upon those with whom 
he was associated, studied their strength and weak- 
ness, and delivered judgment, intolerant in its 
youthful sureness. 

"The young lieutenants," he wrote, "are wonder- 
ful. Profoundly and serenely competent at their 
own work, but irresponsible as children in every- 
thing else. Their ideas of chaff and ragging never 
arise above those of the fifth form. Whenever they 
speak of the Empire they mean the one in Leicester 
Square. Shore leave for them means a bust at 
the Trocadero, with a music-hall to follow, prefer- 
ably with a pretty girl. Their notions of shore 
life are of the earth earthy, not to say fleshy, but 
at sea work they approach the divine. There is 
not a two-striper in my wardroom who could not 
with complete confidence and complete competence 
take the Grand Fleet into action. But of educa- 
tion, as you or I understand the word, they have 
none. The Navy has been their strictly intensive 
life since they left school at about thirteen. Of art, 
or literature, or music — except in the crudest forms 
— they know nothing, and care nothing. And this 
makes their early retirement the more tragical. 
They go out, nine-tenths of them, before they 
reach forty without mental or artistic resources. 
The Navy is a remorseless user up of youth. Those 
who remain afloat, especially those without com- 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT CESAR 331 

batant responsibilities, tend to degenerate into 
S.O.B.s." 

I will not translate; Caesar is too young and too 
clever to be sympathetic towards those of middle 
age. 

One afternoon in spring Lieutenant Caesar was 
plunged without warning into the Jutland Battle. 
He and his like were placidly waiting at action 
stations in their turrets, when the order came to 
put live shell into the guns. For six hours he 
remained in his turret, serving his two 13.5-inch 
guns, but seeing nothing of what passed outside 
his thick steel walls. When I implored him to 
recount to me his experiences, he protested that he 
had none. 

"You might as well ask a sardine, hermetically 
sealed in a tin, to describe a fire in a grocer's shop," 
wrote he. "I was that sardine, and so were nearly 
all of us. Those in the conning tower saw some- 
thing, and so did the officers in the spotting top 
when they were not being smothered by smoke 
and by water thrown up by bursting shells. But 
as for the rest of us — don't you believe the stories 
told you by eye-witnesses of naval battles. They 
are all second or third hand, and rubbish at that. 
When I have sorted the thing out from all those 
who did see, and collated the discrepant accounts, 
I will give you my conclusions, but I shall not be 
allowed to write them. For a literary man the 
Navy is a rotten service." 

Caesar at this time wrote rather crossly. He had, 
I think, visualised himself as the writer some day 
of an immortal story of the greatest naval battle in 



332 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

history. Now that he had been through it, he 
knew as little of it at first hand as a heavy gunner 
in France does of the advancing infantry whose 
path forward he is cutting out. 

The isolation of a busy turret in action may be 
realised when one learns that Caesar knew nothing 
of the loss of the Queen Mary, Indefatigable, or 
Invincible until hours after they had gone to the 
bottom. He had heard nothing even of damage 
suffered by his own ship until, a grimy figure in 
frowsy overalls, he crawled through the roof of his 
big sardine tin and met in the darkness one of his 
friends who had been in the spotting top. 

"There was a frightful row going on as we sat 
there on the turret's roof," wrote Caesar to me. 
"Our destroyers were charging in upon Fritz's 
flying ships, which with searchlights and guns of 
all calibres were seeking to defend themselves. 
We could not fire for our destroyers were in the way. 
The horizon flamed like the aurora borealis, and 
now and then big shells, ricochetting, would scream 
over us. I enjoyed myself fine, and had no wish to 
seek safety in my turret, of which I was heartily 
sick. That is the only part of the action which I 
saw, and the details were buried in confusion and 
darkness. All the rest of the day I had been serving 
two hungry guns with shells and cordite, and firing 
them into unknown space. I was too intent on my 
duties to be bored, but I did not get the least bit of 
a thrill until I climbed out on the roof. Still I am 
glad to have been in the Battle, and, I love my big 
wise guns." 

It was while his battle-cruiser was being refitted, 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT CAESAR 333 

and when he had just returned from a few days' 
leave, that the wheel of his destiny made another 
turn. He was howked struggling and kicking out 
of his turret as one plucks a periwinkle from its 
shell, and cast into a destroyer attached to the 
North Sea patrol. He had, as I have told, an easy 
knack of picking up languages. To a solid knowl- 
edge of German he had added in past vacations 
more than a speaking acquaintance with the 
Scandinavian tongues — Norse, Danish, and Swedish 
-—and his industry was now turned to his undoing. 
Naval gunners were more plentiful than boarding 
officers who could converse with the benevolent 
and unbenevolent neutral, and Caesar's unfortunate 
accomplishments clearly indicated him for a new 
job. At first he was furious, but became quickly 
reconciled. For, as he argued, fighting on a grand 
scale is over, Fritz has had such a gruelling that 
he won't come out any more; North Sea stunts 
will seem very tame after that day out by the 
Jutland coast; patrolling the upper waters of the 
North Sea cannot be quite dull, and cross-examining 
Scandinavian pirates may become positively excit- 
ing. So Caesar settled down in his destroyer, in so far 
as any one can settle down in such an uneasy craft. 
Caesar now formed part of the inner and closer 
meshes of the North Sea blockade designed to inter- 
cept those ships which had penetrated the more 
widely spread net outside. Many of the masters 
whom he interviewed claimed to have a British safe- 
conduct, but Caesar was not to be bluffed. With a 
rough and chocolate-hued skin he had acquired 
the peremptory air of a Sea God. 

"It is rather good fun sometimes," he wrote to 



334 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

me. "We can't search big ships on the high seas 
at all thoroughly, and we don't want to send them 
all into port for examination, so we work a Black 
List. I have a list from the War Trade Depart- 
ment of firms which are not allowed to ship to 
neutral countries, and of all suspected enemy agents 
in those countries. The Norse, Danish and Dutch 
skippers are very decent and do their best to help, 
but the Swedes are horrid blighters. Whenever 
there is any doubt at all we send ships into port to 
be thoroughly examined there. You may take 
it that not much gets through now. Next to a com- 
plete blockade of all sea traffic for neutral ports — 
which I don't suppose the politicians can stomach — 
our Black List system seems to be the goods. I 
get good fun with these merchant skippers, and am 
becoming quite a linguist, but the work is less 
exciting that I had hoped. It is amusing to see a 
7,000-ton tramp escorted into port by a twenty- 
foot motor-boat which she could sling up on her 
davits, but even this sight becomes a matter of 
course after a while. I have seen something of war 
from three aspects, and seem to have exhausted 
its sensations. They are greatly overrated." 

But Lieutenant Caesar was destined to have one 
more experience before war had used him up and 
relaid him upon the shelf from which he was 
plucked in September, 1914. A destroyer upon 
patrol duty is still a fighting vessel, and fights joy- 
fully whenever she can snatch a plausible oppor- 
tunity. Caesar had sunk a submarine, served 
through the Jutland Battle, and assisted to stop 
the holes in the British blockade, but he had not yet 
known what fighting really means. That is reserved 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT OESAR 335 

for destroyers in action. One afternoon he was 
cruising not far from the Dogger Bank, when the 
sound of light guns was heard a few miles off towards 
the east. The Lieut. -Commander in charge of our 
unit in H.M.S. Blockade obeyed the Napoleonic 
rule and steered at once for the guns. In about 
ten minutes a group of small craft wreathed in 
smoke, lighted up at short intervals by gun flashes, 
appeared on the horizon, and roaring at her full 
speed of 34 knots the British destroyer swept down 
upon them. Presently seven trawlers were made 
out firing with their small guns at two German 
torpedo boats, which with torpedo and 23-pounder 
weapons were intent upon destroying them. One 
trawler was blown sky-high while Caesar's ship was 
yet half a mile distant, and another rolled over 
shattered by German shell. "It was a pretty 
sight," said Caesar, when I visited him in hospital, 
and learned to my deep joy that he was out of 
danger. "When we got within a quarter of a mile 
we edged to starboard to give the torpedo tubes a 
clear bearing on the port bow. A shell or two 
flew over us, but the layers at the tubes took no 
notice. They waited till we were quite close, not 
more than two hundred yards, and then loosed a 
torpedo. I have never seen anything so quick and 
smart. I saw the mouldy drop and start, and then 
a huge column of water spouted up, blotting out 
entirely the nearest German boat. The water fell 
and set us tossing wildly, but I kept my feet and 
could see that German destroyer shut up exactly 
like a clasp-knife. She had been bust up amidships, 
her bow and stern almost kissed one another, and 
she went down vertically. The other turned to 
fly, firing heavily upon us, but our boys had her 



336 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

in their grip. We had three fine guns, 4-inch semi- 
automatics. We hit her full on the starboard 
quarter as she turned, and then raked her the whole 
length of her deck. I did not see the end, for 
earth and sky crashed all round me, and I went to 
sleep. When I awoke I was lying below, my right 
leg felt dead, but there was no pain, and from the 
horrid vibration running through the vessel I knew 
that we were at full speed. 

'"Did we get the other one?' I asked of my 
servant, whom I saw beside me. 'She sunk 
proper, sir,' said he. 'You, sir, are the only 
casuality we 'ad.' It was an honour which I 
found it difficult to appreciate. 'What's the 
damage? ' I muttered. 'I'm afraid, sir/ he replied 
diffidently, ' that your right leg is bio wed away.' 
Then I fainted, and did not come round again 
till I was in hospital here. My leg is gone at 
the knee; I lost a lot of blood, and should have lost 
my life but for the tourniquet which the Owner 
himself whipped round my thigh. They have 
whittled the stump shipshape here, and I am to 
have a new leg of the most fashionable design. 
The doctors say that I shall not know the difference 
when I get used to it, and shall be able to play golf 
and even tennis. Golf and tennis! Good games, 
but they seem a bit tame after the life I've led for 
the last two years." Caesar fell silent, and I gripped 
his hand. 

"It isn't as if you were in the Regular Service," 
I murmured. "It isn't your career that's gone. 
That is still to come. You've done your bit, 
Caesar, old man." 

His eyes glittered and a tear welled over and 
rolled down his cheek. That was all, the only sign 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT CESAR 337 

of weakness and of regret for the lost leg and the 
lost opportunities for further service. When he 
spoke again it was the old cheerful Caesar whom I 
knew. "It seems funny. A month or two hence 
I shall be back at Oxford, reading philosophy and 
all sorts of absurd rubbish for my First in Greats. 
From Oxford I came, and to Oxford I shall return; 
these two years of life will seem like a dream. A 
few years hence I shall have nothing but my medal 
and my wooden leg to remind me of them. It has 
been a good time, Copplestone — a devilish good 
time. I have done my bit, but I wasn't cut out 
for a fighting man. There is too much preparation 
and too little real business. I should have ex- 
hausted the thing and got bored. In time I should 
have become an S.O.B. like some of those others. 
No, Copplestone, I have nothing to regret, not even 
the lost leg. It is better to go out like this than 
to wait till the end of the war, and then to be among 
the Not Wanteds." 

"They've made you a Lieutenant-Commander," 
I said slowly. 

"Two and a half stripes," he murmured. "They 
look pretty, but they are only the wavy ones, not 
the real article. I was never anything but a 
'tempory blighter, 'ere to-day and gone to-mor- 
row, and good riddance.' It was decent of them 
to think of me, but stripes are no use to me now. 
I shall be at Oxford with the other cripples, and 
the weak hearts, and the aliens, and the con- 
scientious objectors — what do the dregs of Oxford 
know of stripes? " 



I saw as much as I could of Caesar during the 



338 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

weeks that followed. His mental processes inter- 
ested me hugely. He has an enviable faculty of con- 
centrating upon the job in hand to the complete 
exclusion of everything outside. He forgot Oxford 
in the Service, and now seemed to have almost 
forgotten the Service in his return to Oxford, and 
to what he calls civilisation. He was greatly taken 
up with the design for his wooden leg. I met him 
after his first visit to Roehampton to be measured, 
and found him bubbling over with enthusiasm. 
"Such legs and arms!" cried he. "They are 
almost better than meat and bone ones. I saw a 
Tommy with a shorter stump than mine jumping 
hurdles and learning to kick. He was a professional 
footballer once. Another with a wooden arm 
could write and even draw. In a month or two's 
time, when my stump is healed solid and I have 
learnt the tricks of my new leg, it will be a great 
sport exercising it and trying to find out what it 
can't do. A new interest in life." 

"You seem rather to like having a leg blown 
off," I said, wondering. 

He is extraordinarily exuberant. I looked for 
depression after a month in hospital, but looked in 
vain. He builds up a future with as much zest as 
a youthful architect executes his first commission. 
The First in Greats is "off"; Caesar says that he 
has not time to bother about such things. "I 
shall read History and modern French and Russian 
literature. History will do for my Final Schools, 
and Literature for my play. I shall learn Russian. 
Then when I have taken my degree I shall go in for 
the Foreign Office. My wooden leg will actually 
help me to a nomination, and the exam, is nothing. 
It's not a bad idea; I thought of it last night." 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT CESAR 339 

"You don't take long over a decision," I re- 
marked. 

"I never did," said he calmly. 

When he returned to Oxford early in November 
he urged me to pay him a visit. I was in London 
a week or two later and having twenty-four hours 
to spare ran up to Oxford, established myself at the 
Clarendon, and summoned Caesar to dine with me. 
All through the meal wonder grew upon me. For 
my very charming guest was an undergraduate in 
his fourth year, bearing no trace of having been 
anything else. We talked of Balzac, Anatole 
France, and Turgeniev. I listened politely to 
Caesar's views upon German and Russian Church 
music. I learned that the scarcity of Turkish 
cigarettes was causing him distress, that his rooms 
were delightful, and that Oxford was a desert swept 
clear of his old friends. The war was never once 
referred to. His conversation abounded in slang 
with which I was not familiar — I come from the 
other shop. It was an insufferable evening, and 
I saw Caesar hobble away upon his crutches with 
positive relief. He could use his leg a little, but 
the stump was still rather sore. That hobble was 
the one natural and human thing about him. 

I passed a wretched night, came to a desperate 
resolution early in the morning, and carried it out 
about nine o'clock. Caesar was in his "delightful 
rooms." They certainly had a pleasant aspect, 
but the furniture disgusted me ; it might have been 
selected by a late- Victorian poet. I looked for a 
book or a picture which might connect Caesar with 
the R.N.V.R., and looked in vain. He was busy 
trampling upon the best two years of his life and 
forgetting that he had ever been a man. It should 



340 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

not be. Presently he came in from his bedroom 
and began to talk in the manner of the night before 
but I cut him short. "Caesar," I said brutally, 
"you are no better than an ass. Look at these 
rooms. Is this the place for a man who has lived 
and fought in a motor-boat, a battle-cruiser, and 
a T.B.D.? You have sunk a German submarine, 
served in the Jutland Battle, and lost a leg in your 
country's service. Hug these things to your soul, 
don't throw them away. Brood upon them, write 
about them, for the love of Heaven don't try to 
forget them." 

I saw his eyes light up, but he said nothing. His 
lips began to twitch and, knowing him as I did, I 
should have heeded their warning. But unchecked 
I drivelled on: 

"Are you the man to shrink from an effort 
because of pain? Did you grouse when your leg 
was blown off? Wring all you can out of the future. 
Read History, join the F.O., study Russian. But 
do these things in a manner worthy of Lieutenant- 
Commander Caesar, and don't try to revive the 
puling Oxford spark that you were two years ago 
before the war came to sweep the rubbish out of 
you." 

He gave a clumsy leap, tripped over his new leg, 
and fell into a chair. Lying there he laughed and 
laughed and laughed. How he laughed! Not 
loud, but deeply, thoroughly, persistently, as if to 
make up for a long abstinence. 

"Confound you!" I growled. "What the deuce 
are you laughing at?" 

" You v " said Caesar simply. 

At the word the truth surged over me in a 
shameful flood. That preposterous dinner with 



EPILOGUE: LIEUTENANT OESAR 341 

its babble of Balzac and Turgeniev, Church music, 
and Turkish cigarettes. These rooms stripped of 
all reminders of two strenuous years of war. That 
Oxford accent and the intolerable Oxford slang. 
"Caesar," I shouted, joining in his exuberant 
laughter, "you have been pulling my leg all the 
time." 

"All the time," said he. "My bedroom is full 
of stuff that I cleared out of here. Last night, 
Copplestone, your ever-lengthening face was a 
lovely study, and I have wondered ever since how 
I kept in my laughter." 

"You young villain," cried I, overjoyed to find 
that Caesar was still my bright friend of the 
R.N.V.R. "How shall I ever get even with you?" 

"I owe you some reparation," said he, "and here 
it is." He hobbled over to his desk and drew out 
a great roll of paper. "This is the first instalment; 
there are lots more to come. For the last month 
I have been trying to remember, not to forget. I 
am writing of everything that I have done and 
seen and heard and felt during those two splendid 
years. Everything. It will run to reams of paper 
and months of time. When it is finished you shall 
have it all. Take it, saturate yourself in it, add 
your spells to it. We will stir up the compound of 
Copplestone and Caesar until it ferments, and then 
distil from the mass a Great Work. It shall be ours, 
Copplestone — yours and mine. Will you have me 
as your partner. " 

"With the greatest pleasure in life," I cried. 

We discussed our plans in full detail, and parted 
the best of friends. Caesar is rekindling the ashes 
of a life which I had thought to be extinguished; 
soon there will be a great and glowing fire of realised 



342 THE SILENT WATCHERS 

memory which will keep warm the years that are 
to come. He has solved the problem of his immedi- 
ate future. But what of those others, those tens of 
thousands, who when the war is over will seek for 
some means to keep alive the fires which years of 
war have lighted in their hearts? Are they to be 
merged, lost, in the old life as it was lived before 
1914? Are they to degenerate slowly but surely 
into S.O.B.s, intent only upon earning a living 
somehow, playing bad golf, or looking on at football 
matches? I do not know, I have no data, and it is 
rather painful to indulge oneself in speculation. 

This sketch was published a year ago. Two 
months after I had visited Caesar at Oxford he 
called upon me in London. He was in uniform, 
and explained that he had quickly grown tired of 
sick leave and had recalled himself to Service. 
"I can't go to sea again," said he, "with this timber 
toe, but I am at least good for an office job ashore." 
But Caesar was not made to fit the stool of any 
office, and when I last heard from him was an 
observer in the R.N.A.S. 

In this fashion he has rounded off his experiences, 
and basely failed me, his friend and biographer, 
of the scanty data with which to answer the ques- 
tion set forth in the first sentence of this chapter. 



THE END 



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